DIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


FROM    THt    LIBRARY    i  )}- 

BENJAMIN  PARKE  AVERY. 


Accessions  No. 

BIOLOGY 
JLOMARY 


GIFT  OF- MRS.  A  VERY, 

August,  i8qb. 

jss  No. 


1 


>' 


THE    HISTOKY 


OP   A 


MOUTHFUL  OF  BREAD: 


AND  ITS  EFFECT 

ON   THE 

mjalium  of  HUn  atttr 
BY   JEAN   MACfi. 


TRANSLATED  PROM  THE  EIGHTH  FRENCH  EDITION, 
BY  MRS.  ALFRED  GATTY. 


EDITIO1T, 

REPEIXTEb  FEOSI  THE   ABOVE,  CAREFULLY  EEVISED  AND   COMPAEED  WITn  THB  8ETEN 
TEEXTII  FEBNCH  EDITION. 


;NEW    YORK: 
BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN    SQUARE. 

1868. 


LIBRARY 
G 


BY     JEAN      MACE. 


HOME  FAIRY  TALES  (Contes  du  Petit-Chateau}.  Translated  by  MARY  L. 
BOOTH.  With  Engravings.  i2mo,  Cloth,  $i  75. 

THE  SERVANTS  OF  THE  STOMACH.  Reprinted  from  the  London  Trans- 
lation, Revised  and  Corrected.  i2mo,  Cloth,  $i  75.- 

THE  HISTORY  OF  A  MOUTHFUL  OF  BREAD:  and  its  Effect  on  the 
Organization  of  Men  and  Animals.  Translated  from  the  Eighth  French 
Edition  by  Mrs.  ALFRED  GATTY.  i2mo,  Cloth,  $i  75. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  SENSES  AND  THOUGHT.  Translated  by  MARY 
L.  BOOTH.  i2mo.  (/« Press.) 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1866, 
BY   J.    S.    KEDFIELD 

In  the  Clerk's  office  of  the  District  Court  of  tho  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


EXTRACTS  FRO^f  THE  PREFACE  TO   THE 
ENGLISH  EDITION. 

THE  volume  of  which  the  following  pages  are  a  translation, 
nas  been  adopted  by  the  University  Commission  at  Paris  among 
their  prize  looks,  and  has  reached  an  eighth  edition.  Perhaps 
these  facts  speak  sufficiently  in  its  favor ;  but  as  translator,  and 
to  some  extent  editor,  I  wish  to  add  my  testimony  to  the  great 
charm"  as  well  as  merit  of  the  little  work.  I  sat  down  to  it,  I 
must  own,  with  no  special  predilection  in  favor  of  the  subject 
as  a  suitable  one  for  young  people ;  but  in  the  course  of  the 
labor  have  become  a  thorough  'convert  to  the  author's  views 
that  such  a  study — perhaps  I  ought  to  add,  so  pursued  as  he  has 
enabled  it  to  be— is  likely  to  prove  a  most  useful  and  most  desir- 
able one. 

The  precise  age  at  which  the  interest  of  a  young  mind  can  be 
turned  towards  this  practical  branch  of  natural  history  is  an 
open  question,  and  not  worth  disputing  about.  It  may  vary 
even  in  different  individuals.  The  letters  are  addressed  to  a 
child — in  the  original  even  to  a  little  girl — and  most  undoubt- 
edly, as  the  book  stands,  it  is  fit  for  any  child's  perusal  who  can 
find  amusement  in  its  pages :  while  to  the  rather  older  readers, 
of  whom  I  trust  there  will  be  a  great  many,  I  will  venture  to  say 
that  the  advantage  they  will  gain  in  the  subject  having  been  so 
treated  as  to  be  brought  within  the  comprehension  and  adapted 
to  the  tastes  of  a  child,  is  pretty  nearly  incalculable.  The  quaint- 
ness  and  drollery  of  the  illustrations  with  which  difficult  scien- 
tific facts  are  set  forth  will  provoke  many  a  smile,  no  doubt,  and 
in  some  young  people  perhaps  a  tendency  to  feel  themselves 
treated  lalyishly  ;  but  if  in  the  course  of  the  babyish  treatment 
they  find  themselves  almost  unexpectedly  becoming  masters  of 
an  amount  of  valuable  information  on  very  difficult  subjects, 
they  will  have  nothing  to  complain  of.  Let  such  young  readers 

(3) 


4  PREFACE  TO   THE  ENGLISH  EDITION. 

refer  to  even  a  popular  Encyclopaedia  for  an  insight  into  any  of 
the  subjects  of  the  twenty-eight  chapters  of  this  volume — "  The 
Heart,"  "  The  Lungs,"  "  The  Stomach,"  "  Atmospheric  Pressure," 
— no  matter  which,  and  see  how  much  they  can  understand  of  it 
without  an  amount  of  preliminary  instruction  which  would  re- 
quire half-a-year's  study,  and  they  will  then  thoroughly  appre- 
ciate the  quite  marvellous  ingenuity  and  beautiful  skill  with 
which  M.  Mace  has  brought  the  great  leading  anatomical  and 
physical  facts  of  life  out  of  the  depths  of  scientific  learning,  and 
made  them  literally  comprehensible  by  a  child. 

There  is  one  point  (independent  of  the  scientific  teaching)  and 
that,  happily,  the  only  really  important  one,  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish translator  has  had  no  change  to  make  or  desire.  The  relig- 
ious teaching  of  the  book  is  unexceptionable.  There  is  no 
strained  introduction  of  the  subject,  but  there  is  throughout  the 
volume  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Great  Creator  of  this  mar- 
vellous work  of  the  human  frame,  of  the  daily  and  hourly  grati- 
tude we  owe  to  Him,  and  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  our  trac- 
ing out  half  his  wonders,  even  in  the  things  nearest  to  our  senses, 
and  most  constantly  subject  to  observation.  M.  Mace"  will  help, 
and  not  hinder  the  humility  with  which  the  Christian  natural- 
ist lifts  one  veil  only  to  recognise  another  beyond. 

It  will  be  satisfactory  to  any  one  who  may  be  inclined  to  won- 
der how  a  lady  can  feel  sure  of  having  correctly  translated  the 
various  scientific  and  anatomical  statements  contained  in  the 
volume,  to  know  that  the  whole  has  been  submitted  to  the  care- 
ful revision  of  a  medical  friend,  to  whom  I  have  reason  to  be 
very  grateful  for  valuable  explanations  and  corrections  whenever 
they  were  necessary.  In  the  same  way  the  chapter  on  "  Atmos- 
pheric Pressure,"  where,  owing  to  the  ditieience  between  French 
and  English  weights  and  measures,  several  alterations  of  illus- 
trations, etc.,  had  to  be  made,  has  received  similar  kind  offices 
from  the  hands  of  a  competent  mathematician. 

MARGARET  GATTY. 
Ecclesfield,  June,  1864. 


NOTE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


IN  May  '66,  the  seventeenth  edition  of  this  work  was  on  sale 
in  Paris.  The  date  of  Mrs.  Gatty's  preface,  it  will  be  observed, 
is  June  '64,  and  at  that  time,  the  eighth  French  edition  only 
had  been  reached.  That  it  should  be  a  popular  book  and  com- 
mand a  large  sale  wherever  it  is  known,  will  not  surprise  any 
one  who  reads  it :  the  only  remarkable  circumstance  about  it  is, 
that  it  should  not  have  been  republished  here  long  ere  this. 
Even  this  may  probably  be  accounted  for,  on  the  supposition 
that  the  title  under  which  the  translation  was  published  in  Eng- 
land, was  so  unmeaning — conveying  not  the  slightest  idea  of 
the  contents  of  the  book — that  none  of  our  publishers  even  ven- 
tured to  hand  it  over  to  their  "  readers  "  to  examine. 

The  author's  title,  The  History  of  a  Mouthful  of  Bread,  while 
falling  far  short  of  giving  a  clear  notion  of  the  entire  scope  of 
the  work,  is  shockingly  diluted  and  meaningless,  when  trans- 
lated The  History  of  a  Bit  of  Bread! 

To  the  translation  of  Mrs.  Gatty,  which  is  in  the  main  an 
excellent  one,  for  she  has  generally  seized  upon  the  idea  of  the 
author  and  rendered  it  with  singular  felicity,  it  may  be  very 
properly  objected  that  she  has  taken  some  liberties  with  the 
text  when  there  was  any  conflict  of  opinion  between  herself  and 
her  author,  and  has  given  her  own  ideas  instead  of  his,  which  is, 
probably,  what  she  refers  to  when  she  calls  herself  "  to  some  ex- 
tent editor." 

The  reader  of  this  edition  will,  in  all  these  cases,  find  the 
thought  of  the  author  and  not  that  of  his  translator ;  for  the 
reason  that  a  careful  examination  of  the  original  has  convinced 
the  publisher  that  in  every  instance  the  author  was  to  be  pro- 

(5) 


6  NOTE   TO  THE   AMERICAN  EDITION. 

ferred  to  the  translator,  to  say  nothing  of  the  right  an  author 
may  have  to  be  faithfully  translated. 

Besides  making  these  restorations,  the  copy  from  which  this 
edition  was  printed  has  been  carefully  compared  with  the  last 
edition  of  the  author  and  a  vast  number  of  corrections  made, 
and  in  its  present  shape  it  is  respectfully  submitted  and  dedi- 
cated to  every  one  (whose  name  is  legion,  of  course)  who  num- 
bers among  his  young  friends  a  "my  dear  child"  to  present  it 
to. 


CONTENTS 


LETTER  PACK 

I.— INTRODUCTION     .  .  9 


MAN. 

II. — THE  HAND.  .  .  .19 

HI. — THE  TONGUE 26 

IV. — THE  TEETH            .                               .           .  33 

v. — THE  TEETH  (continued) 41 

vi.— THE  TEETH  (continued) 49 

VH. — THE  THROAT 57 

VIH. — THE  STOMACH      .                                 64 

ix. — THE  STOMACH  (continued) 73 

X. — THE  INTESTINAL  CANAL 80 

XI. — THE  LIVER 

XH. — THE  CHYLE .97 

XIH. — THE  HEART 104 

XIV. — THE  ARTERIES '  112 

XV. — THE  NOURISHMENT  OP  THE  ORGANS     .           .           .  123 

XVI. — THE  ORGANS 128 

XVII. — ARTERIAL  AND  VENOUS  BLOOD      .           .           .           .  133 

XVHI. — ATMOSPHERIC  PRESSURE 139 

XIX. — THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS 151 

XX. — CARBON  AND  OXYGEN 166 

XXI. — COMBUSTION '     .          .          .  174 

XXH. — ANIMAL  HEAT     ........  181 

xxni. — ACTION  or  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  ORGANS        .  194 

(7) 


8  CONTENTS. 

XXIV. — THE  "WORK  OP  THE  ORGANS 200 

XXV. — CARBONIC  ACID 209 

XXVI.— ALIMENTS  OF  COMBUSTION 216 

XXVII. — ALIMENTS   OF    NUTRITION   (continued) —  NITROGEN 

OR  AZOTE 225 

XXVIII.— COMPOSITION  OF  THE  BLOOD  234 


ANIMALS. 

XXIX.— CLASSIFICATION  OF  ANIMALS 247 

XXY. — MAMMALIA  (Mammals) 256 

xxxi.— MAMMALIA.    (Mammals)  —  continued      .        .       .266 

XXXIL— MAMMALIA— continued 277 

xxxm. — MAMMALIA — continued 286 

xxxiv.— AVES.    (Birds)       .  ' 301 

xxxv.— REPTILIA.    (ReptUes) 314 

xxxvi. — PISCES.    (Fishes)    .       .       .       .       .       .       .  331 

\x  XVIL— INSECTA.    (Insects) 345 

xxx von. — CRUSTACEA — MOLLUSKA.     (Crustaceans  and  Mol- 

toate,) 361 

xxxix.— VERMES— ZOOPHYTA.    ( Worm*  and  Zoophyte^      .  373 

XL.— THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS     .          .          .          .389 

CONCLUSION                                                                                   .  396 


THE  HISTORY 


OF  A 


MOUTHFUL  OF  BREAD. 


LETTER    I. 

INTRODUCTION. 


I  AM  going  to  tell  you,  my  dear  child,  something  of 
the  life  and  nature  of  men  and  animals,  believing  the 
information  may  be  of  use  to  you  in  after-life,  besides 
being  an  amusement  to  you  now. 

Of  course,  I  shall  have  to  explain  to  you  a  great  many 
particulars  which  are  generally  considered  very  difficult 
to  understand,  and  which  are  not  always  taught  even  to 
grown-up  people.  But  if  we  work  together,  and  between 
us  succeed  in  getting  them  clearly  into  your  head,  it 
will  be  a  great  triumph  to  me,  and  you  will  find  out 
that  the  science  of  learned  men  is  more  entertaining  for 
little  girls,  as  well  as  more  comprehensible,  than  it  is 
sometimes  supposed  to  be.  Moreover,  you  will  be  in 
advance  of  your  years,  as  it  were,  and  one  day  may  be 
astonished  to  find  that  you  had  mastered  in  childhood, 
almost  as  a  mere  amusement,  some  of  the  first  principles 
of  anatomy,  chemistry,  and  several  other  of  the  physical 
1*  (9) 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

sciences,  as  well  as  having  attained  to  some  knowledge 
of  natural  history  generally. 

I  begin  at  once,  then,  with  the  History  of  a  Mouthful 
of  Bread,  although  I  am  aware  you  may  be  tempted  to 
exclaim,  that  if  I  am  going  to  talk  only  about  that,  I 
may  save  myself  the  trouble.  You  know  all  about  it, 
you  say,  as  well  tfs  I  do,  and  need  not  surely  be  told 
how  to  chew  a  bit  of  bread-and-butter !  Well,  but  you 
must  let  me  begin  at  the  very  beginning  with  you,  and 
you  have  no  notion  what  an  incredible  number  of  facts 
will  be  found  to  be  connected  with  this  chewing  of  a 
piece  of  bread.  A  big  book  might  be  written  about 
them,  were  all  the  details  to  be  entered  into. 

First  and  foremost — Have  you  ever  asked  yourself 
why  people  eat  ? 

You  laugh  at  such  a  ridiculous  question. 

"  Why  do  people  eat  ?  Why,  because  there  are  bon- 
bons, and  cakes,  and  gingerbread,  and  sweetmeats,  and 
fruit,  and  all  manner  of  things  good  to  eat."  Yery  well, 
that  is  a  very  good  reason,  no  doubt,  and  you  may  think 
that  no  other  is  wanted.  If  there. were  nothing  but 
soup  in  the  world,  indeed,  the  case  would  be  different. 
There  might  be  some  excuse  then  for  making  the  inquiry. 

Now,  then,  let  us  suppose  for  once  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  world  to  eat  but  soup  ;  and  it  is  true  that 
there  are  plenty  of  poor  little  children  for  "whom  there 
is  nothing  else,  but  who  go  on  eating  nevertheless,  and 
with  a  very  good  appetite,  too,  I  assure  you,  as  their 
parents  know  but  too  well  very  often.  Why  do  people 
eat,  then,  even  when  they  have  nothing  to  eat  but  soup? 
This  is  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  if  you  do  not 
already  know. 

The  other  day,  when  your  mamma  said  that  your  frock 
"  had  grown"  too  short,  and  that  you  could  not  go  out 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

visiting  till  we  had  given  you  another  with  longer 
sleeves  and  waist,  what  was  the  real  cause  of  this  neces- 
sity? 

What  a  droll  question,  you  say,  and  you  answer — 
"  Because  I  had  grown,  of  course." 

To  which  I  say  "  of  course,"  too  ;  for  undoubtedly 
it  was  you  who  had  outgrown  your  frock.  But  then  I 
must  push  the  question  further,  and  ask — How  had  you 
grown? 

Now  you  are  puzzled.  Nobody  had  been  to  your  bed 
and  pulled  out  your  arms  or  your  legs  as  you  lay  asleep. 
Xobody  had  pieced  a  bit  on  at  the  elbow  or  the  knee,  as 
people  slip  in  a  new  leaf  to  a  table  when  there  is  going 
to  be  a  larger  party  than  usual  at  dinner.  How  was  it, 
then,  that  the  sleeves  no  longer  came  down  to  your 
wrists,  or  that  the  body  only  reached  your  knees  ? 
Nothing  grows  larger  without  being  added  to,  any  more 
than  anything  gets  smaller  without  having  lost  some- 
thing ;  you  may  lay  that  down  as  a  rule,  once  for  all. 
If,  therefore,  nothing  was  added  to  you  from  without, 
something  must  have  been  added  to  you  from  within. 
Some  sly  goblin,  as  it  were,  must  have  been  cramming 
into  your  frame  whatever  increase  it  has  made  in  arms, 
legs,  or  anything  else.  And  who,  do  you  think,  this  sly 
goblin  is  ? 

Why,  my  dear,  it  is  yourself! 

Ay !  Bethink  you,  now,  of  all  the  bread-and-butter, 
and  bonbons,  and  gingerbread,  and  cakes,  and  sweet- 
meats, and  even  soup  and  plain  food  (the  soup  and  plain 
food  being  the  most  useful  of  all)  which  you  have  been 
sending,  day  by  day,  for  some  time  past,  down  what  we 
used  to  call  "  the  red  lane,"  into  the  little  gulf  below. 
What  do  you  think  became  of  them  when  they  got 
there  ?  Well,  they  set  to  work  at  once,  without  asking 


12  INTBODUCTION. 

your  leave,  to  transform  themselves  into  something  else  ; 
and  gliding  cunningly  into  all  the  holes  and  corners  of 
your  body,  became  there,  each  as  best  he  might,  bones, 
flesh,  blood,  etc.,  etc.  Touch  yourself  where  you  will, 
it  is  upon  these  things  you  lay  your  hand,  though,  of 
course,  without  recognizing  them,  for  the  transforma- 
tion is  perfect  and  complete.  And  it  is  the  same  with 
everybody. 

Look  at  your  little  pink  nails,  which  push  out  further 
and  further  every  morning  j  examine  the  tips  of  your 
beautiful  fair  hair,  which  gets  longer  and  longer  by  de- 
grees ;  coming  out  from  your  head  as  grass  springs  up 
from  the  earth  ;  feel  the  firm  corners  of  your  second 
teeth,  which  are  gradually  succeeding  those  which  came 
to  you  in  infancy  ;  you  have  eaten  all  these  things,  and 
that  no  long  time  ago. 

Nor  are  you  children  the  only  creatures  who  are  busy 
in  this  way.  There  is  your  kitten,  for  instance,  who  a 
few  months  ago  was  only  a  tiny  bit  of  fur,  but  is  now 
turning  gradually  into  a  grown-up  cat.  It  is  her  daily 
food  which  is  daily  becoming  a  cat  inside  her — her 
saucers  of  milk  now,  and  very  soon  her  mice,  all  serve 
to  the  same  end. 

The  large  ox,  too,  of  whom  you  are  so  much  afraid,  be- 
cause you  cannot  as  yet  be  persuaded  what  a  good-natured 
beast  he  really  is,  and  how  unlikely  to  do  any  harm  to 
children  who  do  none  to  him — that  large  ox  began  life 
as  a  small  calf,  and  it  is  the  grass  which  he  has  been 
eating  for  some  time  past  which  has  transformed  him 
into  the  huge  mass  of  flesh  you  now  see,  and  which  by- 
and-by  will  be  eaten  by  man,  to  become  man's  flesh  in 
the  same  manner. 

But,  further,  still :  Even  the  forest  trees,  which  grow 
so  high  and  spread  so  wide,  were  at  first  no  bigger  than 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

your  little  finger,  and  all  the  grandeur  and  size  you  now 
look  upon,  they  have  taken  in  by  the  process  of  eating. 
"  What,  do  trees  eat  ?"  you  ask. 

Yerily,  do  they  ;  and  they  are,  by  no  means,  the  least 
greedy  of  eaters,  for  they  eat  day  and  night  without 
ceasing.  Not,  as  you  may  suppose,  that  they  crunch 
bonbons,  or  anything  else  as  you  do  ;  nor  is  the  process 
with  them  precisely  the  same  as  with  you.  Yet  you 
will  be  surprised  hereafter,  I  assure  you,  to  find  how 
many  points  of  resemblance  exist  between  them  and 
us  in  this  matter.  But  we  will  speak  further  of  this 
presently. 

Now,  I  think  you  must  allow  that  there  are  few  fairy- 
talcs  more  marvellous  than  this  history  of  bread  and 
meat  turning  into  little  boys  and  girls,  milk  and  mice 
turning  into  cats,  and  grass  into  oxen !  And  I  call  it 
a  history,  observe,  because  it  is  a  transformation  that 
never  happens  suddenly,  but  by  degrees,  as  time 
goes  on. 

Now,  then,  for  the  explanation.  You  have  heard,  I 
dare  say,  of  those  wonderful  spinning-machines  which 
take  in  at  one  end  a  mass  of  raw  cotton,  very  like  what 
you  see  in  wadding,  and  give  out  at  the  other  a  roll  of 
fine  calico,  all  folded  and  packed  up  ready  to  be  deliv- 
ered to  the  tradespeople.  Well,  you  have  within  you, 
a  machine  even  more  ingenious  than  that,  which  re- 
ceives from  you  all  the  bread-and-butter  and  other 
sorts  of  food  you  choose  to  put  into  it,  and  returns  it 
to  you  changed  into  the  nails,  hair,  bones  and  flesh  we 
have  been  talking  about,  and  many  other  things  besides  ; 
for  there  are  quantities  of  things  in  your  body,  all  dif- 
ferent from  each  other,  which  you  are  manufacturing  in 
this  manner  all  day  long,  without  knowing  anything 
about  it.  And  a  very  fortunate  thing  this  is  for  you  ; 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

for  I  do  not  know  what  would  become  of  you  if  you 
had  to  be  thinking  from  morning  to  night  of  all  that 
requires  to  be  done  in  your  body,  as  your  mother  has 
to  look  after  and  remember  all  that  has  to  be  done  in 
the  house.  Just  think  what  a  relief  it  would  be  to  her 
to  possess  a  machine  which  should  sweep  the  rooms, 
cook  the  dinners,  wash  the  plates,  mend  torn  clothes, 
and  keep  watch  over  everything  without  giving  her 
any  trouble  ;  and,  moreover,  make  no  more  noise  or 
fuss  than  yours  does,  which  has  been  working  away 
ever  since  you  were  born  without  your  ever  troubling 
your  head  about  k,  or  probably  even  knowing,  of  its 
existence  !  Just  think  of  this  and  be  thankful. 

But  do  not  fancy  you  are  the  only  possessor  of  a 
magical  machine  of  this  sort.  Your  kitten  has  one 
also,  and  the  ox  we  were  speaking  of,  and  all  other 
living  creatures.  And  theirs  render  the  same  service  to 
them  that  yours  does  to  you,  and  much  in  the  same  way  ; 
for  all  these  machines  are  made  after  one  model,  though 
with  certain  variations  adapted  to  the  differences  in 
each  animal.  And,  as  you  will  see  by-and-by,  these 
variations  exactly  correspond  with  the  different  sort  of 
work  that  has  to  be  done  in  each  particular  case.  For 
instance,  where  the  machine  has  grass  to  act  upon,  as  in 
the  ox,  it  is  differently  constructed  from  that  in  the  cat, 
which  has  to  deal  with  meat  and  mice.  In  the  same 
way  in  our  manufactories,  though  all  the  spinning-ma- 
chines are  made  upon  one  model,  there  is  one  particular 
arrangement  for  those  which  spin  cotton,  another  for 
those  which  spin  wool,  another  for  flax,  and  so  on. 

But,  further : 

You  have  possibly  noticed  already,  without  being 
told,  that  all  animals  are  not  of  equal  value ;  or,  at 
least,  to  use  a  better  expression,  they  have  not  all  had 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

the  same  advantages  bestowed  on  them.  The  dog,  for 
instance,  that  loving  and  intelligent  companion,  who 
almost  reads  your  thoughts  in  your  eyes,  and  is  as  affec- 
tionate and  obedient  to  his  master  as  it  were  to  be 
wished  all  children  were  to  their  parents — this  dog  is, 
as  you  must  own,  very  superior,  in  all  ways,  to  the  frog, 
with  its  large  goggle  eyes  and  clammy  body,  hiding  it- 
self in  the  water  as  soon  as  you  come  near  it.  But  again, 
the  frog,  which  can  come  and  go  as  it  likes,  is  decidedly 
superior  to  the  oyster,  which  has  neither  head  nor  limbs, 
and  lives  all  alone,  glued  into  a  shell,  in  a  sort  of  per- 
petual imprisonment. 

Now  the  machine  I  have  been  telling  you  about  is 
found  in  the  oyster  and  in  the  frog  as  well  as  in  the  dog, 
only  it  is  less  complicated,  and  therefore  less  perfect  in 
the  oyster  than  in  the  frog ;  and  less  perfect  again  in 
the  frog  than  in  the  dog  ;  for  as  we  descend  in  the  scale 
of  animals  we  find  it  becoming  less  and  less  elaborate — 
losing  here  one  of  its  parts,  there  another,  but  neverthe- 
less remaining  still  the  same  machine  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  ;  though  by  the  time  it  has  reached  its  lowest 
condition  of  structure  we  should  hardly  be  able  to 
recognize  it  again,  if  we  had  not  watched  it  through  all 
its  gradations  of  form,  and  escorted  it,  as  it  were,  from 
stage  to  stage. 

Let  me  make  this  clear  to  you  by  a  comparison. 

You  know  the  lamp  which  is  lit  every  evening  on  the 
drawing-room  table,  and  around  which  you  all  assemble 
to  work  or  read.  Take  off  first  the  shade,  which  throws 
the  light  on  your  book — then  the  glass  which  prevents 
it  smoking — then  the  little  chimney  which  holds  the 
wick  and  drives  the  air  into  the  flame  to  make  it 
burn  brightly.  Then  take  away  the  screw,  which  sends 
the  wick  up  and  down  ;  vndo  the  pieces  one  by  one,  un- 


16  INTK  3DUCTION. 

til  none  remain  but  those  absolutely  necessary  to  having 
a  light  at  all — namely,  the  receptacle  for  the  oil  and  the 
floating  wick  which  consumes  it. 

Now  if  any  one  should  come  in  and  hear  you  say, 
"  Look  at  my  lamp,"  what  would  he  reply  ?  He  would 
most  likely  ask  at  once, "  What  lamp  ?" — for  there  would 
be  very  little  resemblance  to  a  lamp  in  that  mere  ghost 
of  one  before  him. 

But  to  you,  who  have  seen  the  different  parts  removed 
one  after  another,  that  wick  soaked  in  oil  (let  your  friend 
shake  his  head  about  it  as  he  pleases)  will  still  be  the 
lamp  to  you,  however  divested  of  much  that  made  it 
once  so  perfect,  and  however  dimly  it  may  shine  in 
consequence. 

And  this  is  exactly  what  happens  when  the  machine 
we  are  discussing  is  examined  in  the  different  grades 
of  animals.  The  ignoramus  who  has  not  followed  it 
through  its  changes  and  reductions  cannot  recognize  it 
when  it  is  presented  to  him  in  its  lowest  condition  ;  but 
any  one  who  has  carefully  observed  it  throughout, 
knows  that  it  is,  in  point  of  fact,  the  same  machine 
still. 

This,  then,  is  what  we  are  now  going  to  look  at  to- 
gether, my  dear  little  girl.  We  will  study  first,  piece 
by  piece,  the  exquisite  machine  within  ourselves,  which 
is  of  such  unceasing  use  to  us  as  long  as  we  do  not  give 
it  more  than  a  proper  share  of  work  to  perform.  Do 
you  understand  ?  We  will  see  what  becomes  of  the 
mouthful  of  bread  which  you  place  so  coolly  between 
your  teeth,  as  if  when  that  was  done  nothing  further  re- 
mained to  be  thought  about.  We  will  trace  it  in  its 
passage  through  every  part  of  the  machine,  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  It  will  therefore  be  simply  only  the  His- 
tory of  a  Mouthful  of  Bread  I  am  telling  you,  even 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

while  I  seem  to  be  talking  of  other  matters  ;  for  to  make 
that  comprehensible  I  shall  have  to  enter  into  a  good 
many  explanations. 

And  when  you  have  thoroughly  got  to  understand  the 
history  of  what  you  eat  yourself,  we  will  look  a  little 
into  the  history  of  what  other  animals  eat,  beginning 
by  those  most  like  ourselves,  and  going  on  to  the  rest  in 
regular  succession  downwards.  And  while  we  are  on 
the  subject,  I  will  say  a  word  or  two  on  the  way  in 
which  vegetables  eat,  for,  as  you  remember,  I  have  stated 
that  they  do  eat  also. 

Do  you  think  this  is  likely  to  interest  you,  and  be 
worth  the  trouble  of  some  thought  and  attention  ? 

Perhaps  you  may  tell  me  it  sounds  very  tedious,  and 
like  making  a  great  fuss  about  a  trifle  ;  that  you  have 
all  your  life  eaten  mouthfuls  of  bread  without  troubling 
yourself  as  to  what  became  of  them,  and  yet?  have  not 
been  stopped  growing  by  your  ignorance,  any  more  than 
the  little  cat,  who  knows  no  more  how  it  happens  than 
you  do. 

True,  my  dear  ;  but  the  cat  is  only  a  little  cat,  and 
you  are  a  little  girl.  Up  to  the  present  moment  you  and 
she  have  known,  one  as  much  as  the  other  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  on  that  point  you  have  therefore  had  no  su- 
periority over  her.  But  she  will  never  trouble  herself 
about  it,  and  will  always  remain  a  little  cat.  You,  on 
the  contrary,  are  intended  by  God  to  become  something 
more  in  intelligence  than  you  are  now,  and  it  is  by 
learning  more  than  the  cat  that  you  will  rise  above  her 
in  this  respect.  To  learn,  is  the  duty  of  all  men,  not 
only  for  the  pleasure  of  curiosity  and  the  vanity  of 
being  called  learned,  but  because  in  proportion  to  what 
we  learn  we  approach  nearer  to  the  destiny  which  God 
has  appointed  to  man,  and  when  we  walk  obediently  in 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

the  path  which  God  himself  has  marked  out  for  us,  we 
necessarily  become  better. 

It  is  sometimes  said  to  grown-up  people,  that  it  is 
never  too  late  to  learn.  To  children  one  may  say  that 
it  is  never  too  early  to  learn.  And  among  the  things 
which  they  may  learn,  those  which  I  want  now  to  teach 
you  have  the  double  merit  of  being,  in  the  first  place 
amusing,  and  afterwards,  and  above  all,  calculated  to 
accustom  you  to  think  of  God,  by  causing  you  to  ob- 
serve the  wonders  which  He  has  done.  Sure  am  I  that 
when  you  know  them  you  will  not  fail  to  admire  them  ; 
moreover  I  promise  your  mother  that  you  will  be  all  the 
better,  as  well  as  wiser,  for  the  study. 


FIRST   PART.— MAN. 


LETTER    II. 

THE  HAND. 

AT  the  foot  of  the  mountains,  from  whence  I  write  to 
you,  my  dear  child,  when  we  want  to  show  the  country 
to  a  stranger,  we  commence  by  making  him  climb  one  of 
the  heights,  whence  he  may  take  in  at  a  glance  the  whole 
landscape  below,  all  the  woods  and  villages  scattered 
over  the  plain,  even  up  to  the  blue  line  of  the  Rhine, 
which  stretches  out  to  the  distant  horizon.  After  this 
he  will  easily  find  his  way  about. 

It  is  to  the  top  of  a  mountain  equally  useful  that  I  have 
just  led  you.  It  has  cost  you  some  trouble  to  climb  with 
me.  You  have  had  to  keep  your  eyes  very  wide  open 
that  you  might  see  to  the  end  of  the  road  we  had  to  go 
together.  Now  then,  let  us  come  down  and  view  the 
country  in  detail.  Then  we  shall  go  as  if  we  were  on 
wheels. 

And  now  let  us  begin  at  the  beginning : 

Well,  doubtless,  as  the  'subject  is  eating,  you  will  ex- 
pect me  to  begin  with  the  mouth. 

Wait"  a  moment ;  there  is  something  else  first.  But 
you  are  so  accustomed  to  make  use  of  it,  that  you  have 
never  given  it  a  thought,  I  dare  say. 

It  is  not  enough  merely  that  one  should  have  a  mouth  ; 
we  must  be  able  to  put  what  we  want  within  it.  What 

(19) 


20  THE   HAND. 

would  you  do  at  dinner,  for  instance,  if  you  had  no 
hands? 

The  hand  is  then  the  first  thing  to  be  considered. 

I  shall  not  give  you  a  description  of  it ;  you  know 
what  it  is  like.  But  what,  perhaps,  you  do  not  know, 
because  you  have  never  thought  about  it,  is,  the  reason 
why  your  hand  is  a  more  convenient,  and  consequently 
more  perfect,  instrument  than  a  cat's  paw,  for  instance, 
which  yet  answers  a  similar  purpose,  for  it  helps  the  cat 
to  catch  mice. 

Among  your  five  fingers  there  is  one  which  is  called 
the  thumb,  which  stands  out  on  one  side  quite  apart  from 
the  others.  Look  at  it  with  respect ;  it  is  to  these  two 
little  bones,  covered  over  with  a  little  flesh,  that  man 
owes  part  of  his  physical  superiority  to  other  animals. 
It  is  one  of  his  best  servants,  one  of  the  noblest  of  God's 
gifts  to  him.  Without  the  thumb  three-fourths  (at  least) 
of  human  arts  would  yet  have  to  be  invented ;  and  to 
begin  with,  the  art  not  only  of  carrying  the  contents  of 
one's  plate  to  one's  mouth,  but  of  filling  the  plate  (a  very 
important  question  in  another  way)  would,  but  for  the 
thumb,  have  had  difficulties  to  surmount  of  which  you 
can  form  no  idea. 

Have  you  noticed  that  when  you  want  to  take  hold  of 
anything  (a  piece  of  bread,  we  will  say,  as  we  are  on  the 
subject  of  eating),  have  you  noticed  that  it  is  always  the 
thumb  who  puts  himself  forward,  and  that  he  is  always 
on  one  side  by  himself,  whilst  the  rest  of  the  fingers  are 
on  the  other  ?  If  the  thumb  is  not  helping,  nothing  re- 
mains in  your  hand,  and  you  don't  know  what  to  do  witli 
it.  Try,  by  way  of  experiment,  to  carry  your  spoon  to 
your  mouth  without  putting  your  thumb  to  it,  and  you 
will  see  what  a  long  time  it  will  take  you  to  get  through 
a  poor  little  plateful  of  broth.  The  thumb  is  placed  in 


THE  HAND.  21 

such  a  manner  on  your  hand  that  it  can  face  each  of  the 
other  fingers  one  after  another,  or  all  together,  as  you 
please  ;  and  by  this  we  are  enabled  to  grasp,  as  if  with 
a  pair  of  pincers,  whatever  object,  whether  large  or  small. 
Our  hands  owe  their  perfection  of  usefulness  to  this 
happy  arrangement,  which  has  been  bestowed  on  no 
other  animal,  except  the  monkey,  our  nearest  neighbor. 

I  may  even  add,  while  we  are  about  it,  that  it  is  this 
which  distinguishes  the  hand  from  a  paw  or  a  foot.  Our 
feet,  which  have  other  things  to  do  than  to  pick  up  ap- 
ples or  lay  hold  of  a  fork,  our  feet  have  also  each  five 
lingers,  but  the  largest  cannot  face  the  others  ;  it  is  not 
a  thumb,  therefore,  and  it  is  because  of  this  that  our 
feet  are  not  hands.  Now  the  monkey  has  thumbs  on 
the  four  members  corresponding  to  our  arms  and  legs, 
and  thus  we  may  say  that  he  has  hands  at  the  end  of 
his  legs  as  well  as  of  his  arms.  Nevertheless,  he  is  not 
on  that  account  better  off  than  we  are,  but  quite  the 
contrary.  I  will  explain  this  to  you  presently. 

To  return  to  our  subject.  You  see  that  it  was  neces- 
sary, before  saying  anything  about  the  mouth,  to  con- 
sider the  hand,  which  is  the  mouth's  purveyor.  Before 
the  cook  lights  the  fires  the  maid  must  go  to  market, 
must  she  not  ?  And  it  is  a  very  valuable  maid  that  we 
have  here  :  what  would  become  of  us  without  her  ? 

If  we  were  in  the  habit  of  giving  thought  to  every- 
thing, we  should  never  even  gather  a  nut  without  being 
grateful  to  the  Providence  which  has  provided  us  with  the 
thumb,  by  means  of  which  we  are  able  to  do  it  so  easily. 

But  however  well  I  may  have  expressed  it,  I  am  by 
no  means  sure,  after  all,  that  I  have  succeeded  in  show- 
ing you"  clearly,  how  absolutely  necessary  our  hand  is  to 
us  in  eating,  and  why  it  has  the  honor  to  stand  at  the 
beginning  of  the  history  of  what  we  eat. 


22  THE  HAND. 

It  still  appears  to  you,  I  suspect,  that  even  if  you 
were  to  lose  the  use  of  your  hands  you  would  not,  for    , 
all  that,  let  yourself  die  of  hunger. 

This  is  because  you  have  not  attended  to  another  cir- 
cumstance, which  nevertheless  demands  your  notice — 
namely,  that  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other, 
quantities  of  hands  are  being  employed  in  providing 
you  with  the  wherewithal  to  eat. 

To  go  on  further  :  Have  you  any  idea  how  many  hands 
have  been  put  in  motion  merely  to  enable  you  to  have 
your  coffee  and  roll  in  the  morning  ?  What  a  number, 
to  be  sure,  over  this  cup  of  coffee  (which  is  a  trifle  in 
comparison  with  the  other  food  you  will  consume  in  the 
course  of  the  day) ;  from  the  hand  of  the  negro  who 
gathered  the  coffee  crop  to  that  of  the  cook  who  ground 
the  berries,  to  say  nothing  of  the  hand  of  the  sailor  who 
guided  the  ship  which  bore  them  to  our  shores.  Again, 
from  the  hand  of  the  laborer  who  -sowed  the  corn,  and 
that  of  the  miller  who  ground  it  into  flour,  to  the  hand 
of  the  baker  who  made  it  into  a  roll.  Then  the  hand 
of  the  farmer's  wife  who  milked  the  cow,  and  the  hand 
of  the  refiner  who  made  the  sugar  ;  to  say  nothing  of 
the  many  others  who  prepared  his  work  for  him,  and  I 
know  not  how  many  more. 

How  would  it  be,  then,  if  I  were  to  amuse  myself  by 
counting  up  all  the  hands  that  are  wanted  to  furnish — 

The  sugar-refiner's  manufactory, 

The  milkmaid's  shed, 

The  baker's  oven, 

The  miller's  mill, 

The  laborer's  plough. 

The  sailor's  ship  ? 

And  even  now  is  there  nothing  we  have  forgotten  ? 
Ah,  yes  !  the  most  important  of  all  the  hands  to  you ;— 


THE  HAXD.  23 

the  hand  which  brings  together  for  your  benefit  the 
fruits  of  the  labor  of  all  the  others — the  hand  of  your 
dear  mother,  always  active,  always  ready,  that  hand 
which  so  often  acts  as  yours  when  your  own  is  awkward 
or  idle. 

Now,  then,  you  see  how  you  might  really  manage  to 
do  without  those  two  comparatively  helpless  little  paws 
of  yours  (although  there  is  a  thumb  to  each),  without 
suffering  too  much  for  want  of  food.  With  such  an 
army  of  hands  at  work,  in  every  way,  to  furnish  provis- 
ion for  that  little  mouth,  there  would  not  be  much  dan- 
ger. 

But  cut  off  your  cat's  fore  paws — oh  dear !  what  am 
I  saying  ?  Suppose,  rather,  that  she  has  not  got  any,  and 
then  count  how  many  mice  she  will  catch  in  a  day.  The 
milk  you  give  her  is  another  matter,  remember.  Like 
your  cup  of  coffee,  that  is  provided  for  her  by  others. 

Believe  me,  if  you  were  suddenly  left  all  alone  in  a 
wood,  like  those  pretty  squirrels  who  nibble  hazel-nuts 
so  daintily,  you  would  soon  discover,  from  being  thus 
•thrown  upon  your  own  resources,  that  the  mouth  is  not 
the  only  thing  required  for  eating,  and  that  whether  it 
be  a  paw  or  a  hand,  there  must  always  be  a  servant  to 
go  to  market  for  Mr.  Mouth,  and  to  provide  him  with 
food. 

Happily,  we  are  not  driven  to  this  extremity^  We 
take  hokl  of  our  coffee-biscuit  between  the  thumb  and 
forefinger,  and  behold  it  is  on  its  road — Open  tlje  mouth, 
and  it  is  soon  done ! 

But  before  we  begin  to  chew,  let  us  stop  to  consider  a 
little. 

The  mouth  is  the  door  at  which  everything  enters. 
Now,  to  every  well-kept  door  there  is  a  doorkeeper,  or 
porter.  And  what  is  the  office  of  a  well-instructed 


24  THE  HAND. 

porter  ?  Well,  he  asks  the  people  that  present  them- 
selves, who  they  are,  and  what  they  have  come  for  ;  and 
if  he  does  not  like  their  appearance,  he  refuses  them  ad- 
mittance. "We  too,  then,  to  be  complete,  need  a  porter 
of  this  sort  in  our  mouths,  and  I  am  happy  to  say  we 
have  one  accordingly.  I  wonder  whether  you  know 
him  ?  You  look  at  me  quite  aghast !  Oh,  ungrateful 
child,  not  to  know  your  dearest  friend  !  As  a  punish- 
ment, I  shall  not  tell  you  who  he  is  to-day.  I  will  give 
you  till  to-morrow  to  think  about  it. 

Meanwhile,  as  I  have  a  little  time  left,  I  will  say  one 
word  more  about  what  we  are  going  to  look  at  together. 
It  would  hardly  be  worth  while  to  tell  you  this  pretty 
story  which  we  have  begun,  if  from  time  to  time  we 
were  not  to  extract  a  moral  from  it.  .And  what  is  the 
moral  of  our  history  to-day  ? 

It  has  more  than  one. 

In  the  first  place  it  teaches  you,  if  you  never  knew  it 
before,  that  you  are  under  great  obligations  to  other 
people,  indeed  to  almost  everybody,  and  most  of  all 
perhaps  to  people  whom  you  may  be  tempted  to  look 
down  upon.  This  laborer,  with  his  coarse  smock-frock 
and  heavy  shoes,  whom  you  are  so  ready  to  ridicule,  is 
the  very  person  who,  with  his  rough  hand,  has  been  the 
means  of  procuring  for  you  half  the  good  things  you 
eat.  That  workman,  with  turned-up  sleeves,  whose  dirty 
black  fingers  you  are  afraid  of  touching,  has  very  likely 
blackened  and  dirtied  them  in  your  service.  You  owe 
great  respect  to  all  these  people,  I  assure  you,  for  they 
all  work  for  you.  Do  not,  then,  go  and  fancy  yourself 
of  great  consequence  among  them — you  who  are  of  no 
use  in  any  way  at  present,  who  want  everybody's  help 
yourself,  but  as  yet  can  help  nobody. 

Not  that  I  mean  to  reproach  you  by  saying  this.  Your 


THE   HAND.  25 

turn  has  not  come  yet,  and  everybody  began  like  you 
originally.  But  I  do  wish  to  impress  upon  you  that  you 
must  prepare  yourself  to  become  some  day  useful  to 
others,  so  that  you  may  pay  back  the  debts  which  you 
are  now  contracting. 

Every  time  you  look  at  your  little  hand,  remember 
that  you  have  its  education  to  accomplish,  its  debts  of 
honor  to  repay,  and  that  you  must  make  haste  and  teach 
it  to  be  very  clever,  so  that  it  may  no  longer  be  said  of 
you,  that  you  are  of  no  use  to  anybody. 

And  then,  my  dear  child,  remember  that  a  day  will 
come,  when  the  revered  hands  that  now  take  care  of 
your  childhood  —  those  hands  which  to-day  are  yours, 
as  it  were — will  become  weak  and  incapacitated  by  age. 
You  will  be  strong,  then,  probably,  and  the  assistance 
which  you  receive  now,  you  must  then  render  to  her, 
render  it  to  her  as  you  have  received  it — that  is  to  say, 
with  your  hands.  It  is  the  mother's  hand  which  comes 
and  goes  without  ceasing  about  her  little  girl  now.  It 
is  the  daughter's  hand  which  should  come  and  go  around 
the  old  mother  hereafter — her  hand  and  not  another's. 

Here  again,  my  child,  the  mouth  is  nothing  without 
the  hand.  The  mouth  says,  "  I  love,"  the  hand  proves  it. 


LETTER    III. 

THE  TONGUE. 

Now,  about  this  doorkeeper,  or  porter,  as  we  will  call 
him,  of  the  mouth.  I  do  not  suppose  you  have  guessed 
who  he  is  ;  so  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 

The  porter  who  keeps  the  door  of  the  mouth  is  the 
sense  of  taste. 

It  is  he  who  does  the  honors  of  the  house  so  agreeably 
to  proper  visitors,  and  gives  such  an  unscrupulous  dis- 
missal to  unpleasant  intruders.  In  other  words,  it  is 
by  his  directions  that  we  welcome  so  affectionately  with 
tongue  and  lips  whatever  is  good  to  eat,  and  spit  out 
unhesitatingly  whatever  is  unpleasant. 

I  could  speak  very  ill  of  this  porter  if  I  chose  ;  which 
would  not  be  very  pleasant  for  certain  little  gourmands 
that  I  see  here,  who  think  a  good  deal  too  much  of  him. 
But  I  would  rather  begin  by  praising  him.  I  can  make 
my  exceptions  afterwards. 

In  the  history  I  am  going  to  give  you,  my  dear  child, 
there  is  one  thing  you  must  never  lose  sight  of,  even 
when  I  do  not  allude  to  it ;  and  that  is,  that  everything 
we  shall  examine  into,  has  been  expressly  arranged  by 
God  for  the  good  and  accommodation  of  our  being  in 
this  world  ;  just  as  a  cradle  is  arranged  by  a  mother  for 
the  comfort  of  her  baby.  We  must  look  upon  all  these 
things,  therefore,  as  so  many  presents  from  the  Almighty 
himself ';  and  abstain  from  speaking  ill  of  them,  were  it 
only  out  of  respect  fov  the  hand  which  has  bestowed  them. 

(26) 


THE   TONGUE.  27 

Moreover,  there  is  a  very  easy  plan  by  which  we  may 
satisfy  ourselves  of  the  usefulness  and  propriety  of  these 
gifts — namely,  by  considering  what  would  become  of  us 
if  we  were  deprived  of  any  one  of  them. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  you  were  totally  deficient 
in  the  sense  of  taste,  and  that  when  you  put  a  piece  of 
cake  into  your  mouth,  it  should  create  no  more  sensa- 
tion in  you  than  when  you  held  it  in  your  hand  ? 

You  would  not  have  thought  of  imagining  such  a 
case  yourself,  I  am  aware  ;  for  it  never  comes  into  a 
child's  head  to  think  that  things  can  be  otherwise 
than  as  God  has  made  them.  And  in  that  respect  chil- 
dren are  sometimes  wiser  than  philosophers.  Neverthe- 
less, we  will  suppose  this  for  once,  and  consider  what 
would  happen  in  consequence. 

Well,  in  the  first  place,  you  would  eat  old  mouldy 
cake  with  just  the  same  relish  as  if  it  were  fresh  ;  and 
this  mouldy  cake,  which  now  you  carefully  avoid  because 
it  is  mouldy,  is  very  unwholesome  food,  and  would  poison 
you  were  you  to  eat  a  great  deal  of  it. 

I  give  this  merely  as  an  instance,  but  it  is  one  of  a 
thousand.  And  although,  with  regard  to  eatables,  you 
only  know  such  as  have  been  prepared  either  in  shops  or  in 
your  mamma's  kitchen,  still  you  must  be  aware  there  are 
many  we  ought  to  avoid,  because  they  would  do  no  good 
in  our  stomachs,  and  that  we  should  often  be  puzzled  to 
distinguish  these  from  others,  if  the  sense  of  taste  did 
not  warn  us  about  them.  You  must  admit,  therefore, 
that  such  warnings  are  not  without  their  value. 

In  short,  it  is  a  marvellous  fact  that  what  is  unfit  for 
food,  is  almost  always  to  be  recognized  as  it  enters  the 
mouth,  by  its  disagreeable  taste ;  a  further  proof  that 
God  has  thought  of  everything.  Medicines,  it  is  true, 
are  unpleasant  to  the  taste,  and  yet  have  to  be  swallowed 


28  THE  TONGUE. 

in  certain  cases.  But  we  may  compare  them  to  chimney- 
sweepers, who  are  neither  pretty  to  look  at,  nor  invited 
into  the  drawing-room  ;  but  who,  nevertheless,  are  from 
time  to  time  let  into  the  grandest  houses  by  the  porters 
— though  possibly  with  a  grimace — because  their  services 
are  wanted.  And  in  the  same  way  medicines  have  to 
be  admitted  sometimes — despite  their  unpleasantness — 
because  they,too,  have  to  work  in  the  chimney.  Taste  does 
not  deceive  you  about  them,  however;  they  are  not  intend- 
ed to  serve  as  food.  If  any  one  should  try  to  breakfast, 
dine,  and  sup  upon  physic  he  would  soon  find  this  out. 

Besides,  I  only  said  almost  always,  in  speaking  of 
unwholesome  food  making  itself  known  to  us  by  its 
nasty  taste ;  for  it  is  an  unfortunate  truth  that  men 
have  invented  a  thousand  plans  for  baffling  their  natural 
guardian,  and  for  bringing  thieves  secretly  into  the  com- 
pany of  honest  people.  They  sometimes  put  poison,  for 
instance,  into  sugar — as  is  too  often  done  in  the  case  of 
those  horrible  green  and  blue  sugar  plums,  against  which 
I  have  an  old  grudge,  for  they  poisoned  a  friend  whom 
I  loved  dearly  in  my  youth.  Such  things  as  these  pass 
imprudently  by  the  porter,  who  sees  nothing  of  their  real 
character — Mr.  Sugar  concealing  the  rogues  behind  him. 

Moreover,  we  are  sometimes  so  foolish  as  not  to  leave 
the  porter  time  to  make  his  examination.  We  swallow 
one  thing  after  another  greedily,  without  tasting  ;  and 
such  a  crowd  of  arrivals,  coming  in  with  a  rush,  "  forces 
the  sentry,"  as  they  say  ;  and  whose  fault  is  it,  if,  after 
this,  we  find  thieves  established  in  the  house  ? 

But  animals  have  more  sense  than  we  have. 

Look  at  your  kitten  when  you  give  her  some  tit-bit 
she  is  not  acquainted  with — how  cautiously  and  gently 
she  puts  out  her  nose,  so  as  to  give  herself  time  for  consid- 
eration. Then  how  delicately  she  touches  the  unknown 


THE  TONGUE.  29 

object  with  the  tip  of  her  tongue,  once,  twice,  and  per- 
haps three  times.  And  when  the  tip  of  the  tongue  has 
thus  gone  forward  several  times  to  make  observations 
(for  this  is  the  great  post  of  observation  for  the  cat's 
porter  as  well  as  for  ours),  she  ventures  to  decide  upon 
swallowing,  but  not  before.  If  she  has  the  least  suspi- 
cion, no  amount  of  coaxing  makes  any  difference  to  her  ; 
you  may  call  "  puss,  puss,"  for  ever  ;  all  your  tender  in- 
vitations are  useless,  and  she  turns  away. 

Very  good  ;  here  then  is  one  -little  animal,  at  least, 
who  understands  for  what  end  she  has  received  the  sense 
of  taste,  and  who  makes  a  reasonable  use  of  it.  Very 
different  from  some  children  of  my  acquaintance,  who 
heedlessly  stuff  into  their  mouths  whatever  comes  into 
their  hands,  without  even  taking  the  trouble  to  taste  it, 
and  who  would  escape  a  good  many  stomach-aches,  if 
nothing  else,  if  they  were  as  sensible  as  Pussy. 

This  is  the  really  useful  side  of  the  sense  of  taste  ;  but 
its  agreeable  side,  which  is  sufficiently  well  known  to 
you,  is  not  to  be  despised  either,  even  on  the  grounds  of 
utility. 

You  must  know,  between  ourselves,  that  eating  would 
be  a  very  tiresome  business  if  we  did  not  taste  what  we 
are  eating  ;  and  I  can  well  imagine  what  trouble  mam- 
mas would  have  in  persuading  their  children  to  come  to 
dinner  or  tea,  if  it  were  only  a  question  of  working  their 
little  jaws,  and  nothing  further.  What  struggles — what 
tears !  And  setting  aside  children,  who  are  by  no  means 
always  the  most  disobedient  to  the  will  of  a  good  GOD, 
how  few  men  would  care  to  stop  in  the  midst  of  their 
occupations,  to  go  and  grind  their  teeth  one  against  an- 
other for  half-an-hour,  if  there  were  not  some  pleasure 
attached  to  an  exercise  not  naturally  amusing  in  itself? 
Ay,  ay,  my  dear  child,  were  it  not  for  the  reward  in 


30  THE  TONGUE. 

pleasure  which  is  given  to  men  when  they  eat,  the  human 
race,  who  as  a  whole  do  not  live  too  well  already,  would 
live  still  worse.  And  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  be 
fed,  and  well  fed  too,  if  we  would  perform  properly  here 
below  the  mission  which  we  have  received  from  above. 

Yes,  "reward"  was  the  word  I  used.  Now  it  seems 
absurd  to  you,  perhaps,  that  it  should  be  necessary  to 
reward  a  man  for  eating  a  good  dinner?  Well,  well, 
GOD  has  been  more  kind  to  him,  then,  than  you  would 
be.  To  every  duty  imposed  by  Him  upon  man,  He  has 
joined  a  pleasure  as  a  reward  for  fulfilling  it.  How 
many  things  should  I  not  have  to  say  to  you  on  this  sub- 
ject, if  you  were  older  ?  For  the  present,  I  will  content 
myself  with  making  a  comparison. 

When  a  mother  thinks  her  child  is  not  reasonable 
enough  to  do,  of  her  own  accord,  something  which  it  is 
nevertheless  important  she  should  do,  as  learning  to 
read,  for  instance,  or  to  work  with  her  needle,  <fcc.,  she 
comes  to  the  rescue  with  rewards,  and  gives  her  a  play- 
thing when  she  has  done  well.  And  thus  GOD,  who  had 
not  confidence  enough  in  man's  reason  to  trust  to  it  alone 
for  supplying  the  wants  of  human  nature,  has  placed  a 
plaything  in  the  shape  of  pleasure  after  every  necessity; 
and  in  supplying  the  want,  man  finds  the  reward. 

You  will  hardly  believe  that  what  I  have  here  ex- 
plained to  you  so  quietly  by  a  childish  comparison,  has 
been,  and  alas  1  still  is,  the  subject  of  terrible  disputes 
among  grown-up  people.  If  hereafter  they  reach  your 
ears,  remember  what  I  have  told  you  now,  viz.,  that  the 
pleasure  lodged  in  the  tongue  and  its  surroundings,  is  a 
plaything,  but  a  plaything  given  to  us  by  GOD  ;  and  that 
we  must  use  it  accordingly. 

If  a  little  girl  has  had  a  plaything  given  to  her  by  her 
mother,  would  she  think  to  please  her  by  breaking  it  or 


THE  TONGUE.  31 

throwing  it  into  a  corner  ?  No,  certainly  not :  she  would 
know  that  in  so  doing  she  would  be  going  directly  against 
her  mother's  intentions  and  wishes.  Nevertheless  she 
would  amuse  herself  with  it  in  play  hours,  with  an  easy 
conscience,  and,  if  she  is  amiable,  she  will  remember 
while  she  does  so,  that  it  comes  to  her  from  her  mother, 
and  will  thank  her  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart. 

It  is  the  same  with  man,  of  whose  playthings  we  are 
speaking. 

But,  moreover,  this  little  girl  (it  is  taken  for  granted 
that  she  is  a  good  little  girl)  will  not  make  the  plaything 
the  business  of  her  whole  day,  the  object  of  all  her 
thoughts  ;  she  will  not  forget  everything  for  it,  she  will 
leave  it  unhesitatingly  when  her  mamma  calls  her. 
Neither  will  she  wish  to  be  alone  in  her  enjoyments,  but 
will  gladly  see  her  little  friends  also  enjoy  similar  play- 
things, because  she  thinks  that  what  is  good  for  her 
must  be  good  for  others  too. 

It  is  thus  that  man  should  do  with  his  playthings  ;  but, 
alas  !  this  is  what  he  does  not  by  any  means  always  do 
with  them,  and  hence  a  great  deal  has  been  said  against 
them.  Little  girls,  in  particular,  are  apt  to  fail  on  this 
point,  and  that  is  how  the  dreadful  word  gluttony  came 
to  be  invented.  For  the  same  reason,  also,  people  get 
punished  from  time  to  time  ;  such  punishments  being  the 
consequence  of  the  misuse  I  speak  of. 

If  people  who  call  to  see  your  mamma  were,  instead 
of  going  straight  up  stairs  to  her,  to  establish  them- 
selves at  the  lodge  with  the  porter,. and  stay  the^e  chat- 
ting with  him,  do  you  think  she  would  be  much  flattered 
by  their  visits  ?  And  yet  this  is  exactly  what  people  do 
who,  when  eating,  attend  only  to  the  porter.  He  is  so 
pleasant,  this  porter  ;  he  says  such  pretty  things  to  you, 
that  you  go  on  talking  to  him  just  as  if  he  were  the 


'62  THE  TONGUE. 

master  of  the  house,  who,  meanwhile,  has  quite  gone  out 
of  your  head. 

You  heap  sugar-plums  upon  sugar-plums,  cakes  upon 
cakes,  sweetmeats  upon  sweetmeats  —  everything  that 
pleases  the  porter,  "but  is  of  no  use  whatever  to  the 
master  of  the  house.  And  then  what  happens?  The 
master  gets  angry  sometimes,  and  no  wonder.  Mr. 
Stomach  grows  weary  of  these  visits,  which  are  of  no 
use  to  him.  He  rings  all  the  bells,  makes  no  end  of  a 
noise  in  the  house,  and  forces  tfrat  traitor  of  a  porter 
who  has  engrossed  all  his  company,  to  do  penance. 
You  are  ill — your  mouth  is  out  of  order — you  have  no 
appetite  for  anything.  The  mamma  has  taken  away  the 
plaything  which  has  been  misused,  and  when  she  gives 
it  back,  there  must  be  great  care  taken  not  to  do  the 
same  thing  over  again. 

I  have  thought  it  only  right,  my  dear  child,  in  telling 
you  the  history  of  eating,  to  give  to  this  little  detail  of 
its  beginning,  a  place  proportioned  to  your  interest  in 
it.  You  see  by  what  I  have  said,  that  you  are  not  alto- 
gether wrong  in  following  your  taste  ;  but  neither  must 
it  be  forgotten  that  this  part  of  the  business  is  not  in 
reality  the  most  important ;  that  a  plaything  is  but  a 
plaything,  and  that  the  porter  is  not  the  master  of  the 
house. 

Now  that  we  have  made  our  good  friend's  acquaint- 
ance, we  will  wish  him  farewell,  and  I  will  presently 
introduce  you  to  his  companions  of  the  antechamber, 
who  are  ranged  on  the  two  sides  of  the  door,  to  make 
the  toilettes  for  the  visitors  who  present  themselves,  and 
to  put  them  in  order  for  being  received  in  the  drawing- 
room.  You  will  see  there  some  jolly  little  fellows,  who 
are  also  very  useful  in  their  way,  and  whose  history  is 
no  less  curious.  They  are  called  TEETH. 


LETTER  IV. 

THE  TEETH. 

WHEN  you  were  quite  little,  my  dear  child,  and  still  a 
nursling,  you  had  nothing  behind  your  lips  but  two  little 
rosy  bars,  which  were  of  no  service  for  gnawing  an 
apple,  as  they  were  not  supplied  with  teeth.  You  had 
no  need  of  these  then,  since  nothing  but  milk  passed 
your  lips,  neither  had  your  nurse  bargained  for  your 
having  teeth  to  bite  with.  You  see  that  God  provides 
for  everything,  as  I  have  already  said,  and  shall  often 
have  occasion  to  point  out  to  you. 

But  by  degrees  the  little  infant  grew  into  a  great  girl, 
and  it  became  necessary  to  think  of  giving  her  some- 
thing more  solid  than  milk  to  eat ;  and  for  this  purpose 
she  required  teeth.  Then  some  little  germs,  which  had 
lain  dormant,  concealed  within  the  jaws,  awoke  one  after 
another,  like  faithful  workmen  when  they  hear  the  strik- 
ing of  the  clock.  Each  set  to  work  in  his  little  cell, 
and  with  the  help  of  some  phosphorus  and  some  lime,  it 
began  to  make  itself  a  kind  of  white  armour,  as  hard  as 
a  stone,  which  grew  larger  from  day  to  day. 

You  know  what  lime  is  ;  that  sort  of  white  pulp 
which  you  have  seen  standing  in  large  troughs  where 
the  masons  are  building  houses,  and  which  they  use  in 
making  mortar  ;  it  is  with  this  that  your  little  masons 
build  your  teeth. 

As  to  phosphorus,  I  am  afraid  you  may  never  havo 
2*  (83) 


34  THE  TEETH. 

seen  any  ;  but  you  may  have  heard  it  spoken  of.  It  is 
sold  at  the  druggist's  in  the  form  of  little  white  sticks, 
about  as  thick  as  your  finger  ;  they  have  a  disagreeable, 
garlicky  smell,  and  are  obliged  to  be  kept  in  jars  of 
water,  because  they  seize  every  opportunity  of  taking 
fire  ;  so  I  advise  you,  if  ever  you  do  see  any  phosphorus, 
not  to  meddle  with  it — for  in  burning,  it  sticks  closely 
to  the  skin,  and  there  is  the  greatest  difficulty  in  the 
world  in  extinguishing  it,  and  the  burns  it  makes  are 
fearful.  I  give  you  this  caution,  because  phosphorus 
possesses  a  very  curious  property,  which  might  attract 
little  girls.  Wherever  it  is  rubbed,  in  the  dark,  on  a 
door,  or  on  a  wall,  it  leaves  a  luminous  trail  of  a  very 
peculiar  appearance,  which  has  been  called  phosphores- 
cent, from  the  name  of  the  substance  which  produces  it. 
And  in  this  way  one  can  write  on  walls  in  letters  of 
fire,  to  the  terror  of  cowards.  Now,  come  ;  if  you  will 
promise  to  be  very  wise,  and  only  to  make  the  experi- 
ment when  your  mamma  is  present,  I  will  teach  you  how 
to  make  phosphorescent  lights  without  having  to  go  to 
the  druggist's !  There  is  a  small  quantity  of  phosphorus 
in  lucifer  matches,  which  their  garlicky  smell  proves. 
Bub  them  gently  in  the  dark  on  a  bit  of  wood,  and  you 
will  see  a  ray  of  light  which  will  shine  for  some  mo- 
ments. But  mind,  you  must  not  play  at  that  game  when 
you  are  alone ;  it  is  a  dangerous  amusement,  and  one 
hears  every  day  of  terrible  accidents  caused  by  dis- 
obedient children  playing  with  lucifer  matches.  And 
while  we  are  on  the  subject,  let  me  warn  you  against 
putting  them  into  your  mouth.  Phosphorus  is  a  poison, 
and  such  a  powerful  one  that  people  poison  rats  with 
bread-crumb  balls  in  which  it  has  been  introduced. 

"  Oh  dear  me !   and  that  poison  makes  part  of  our 
teeth  ?" 


THE  TEETH.  35 

Exactly  so,  and  it  even  forms  part  of  all  our  bones, 
and  of  the  bones  of  all  animals  ;  the  best  proof  of  which 
is,  that  the  phosphorus  of  lucifer  matches  has  been  pro- 
cured out  of  bones  from  the  slaughter-house.  One  could 
make  it  from  the  teeth  of  little  girls  if  one  could  get 
enough  of  them. 

Now  I  see  what  puzzles  you,  and  well  it  may.  You 
are  asking  yourself  how  those  little  tooth-makers,  the 
gums,  get  hold  of  this  terrible  phosphorus,  which  is  set 
on  fire  by  a  mere  nothing,  and  which  we  dare  not  put 
into  our  mouths  ;  where  do  they  find  the  lime  which  I 
also  protest  is  not  fit  to  eat,  and  yet  of  which  we  have 
stores  from  our  heads  to  our  feet? 

It  is  very  surprising,  too,  to  think  of  its  being  forth- 
coming in  the  jaws  just  when  it  is  wanted  there. 

You  begin  to  perceive  that  there  are  many  things  to 
be  learnt  before  we  come  to  the  end  of  our  history,  and 
that  we  find  ourselves  checked  at  every  step  ;  now  listen, 
for  we  are  coming  to  something  very  important. 

In  distant  country-seats,  where  people  are  thrown  en- 
tirely upon  their  own  resources,  they  must  be  provided 
beforehand  with  all  that  is  requisite  for  repairing  the 
building ;  and  there  is,  accordingly,  a  person  called  a 
steward,  who  keeps  everything  under  lock  and  key,  and 
distributes  to  the  workmen  whatever  materials  they  may 
require.  Thus,  the  steward  gives  tiles  to  the  slater, 
planks  to  the  carpenter,  colors  to  the  painter,  lime  and 
bricks  to  the  mason — the  very  same  lime  that  we  have 
in  our  teeth — in  fact,  he  has  got  everything  that  can  be 
wanted  in  his  storehouse,  and  it  is  to  him  that  every  one 
applies  in  time  of  need. 

Now  our  body  also  is  a  mansion,  and  has  its  steward 
too.  But  what  a  steward— how  active  !  what  a  univer- 


36  THE   TEETH. 

sal  genius !  how  inefficient  by  comparison  are  the  stew- 
ards of  the  greatest  lords  1  He  goes,  he  comes,  he  is 
everywhere  at  once  ;  and  this  really,  and  not  as  we  use 
the  phrase  in  speaking  of  a  merely  active  man  :  for  the 
being  everywhere  at  once  is  in  this  case,  a  fact.  He  keeps 
everything,  not  in  a  storehouse,  but  what  is  far  better, 
in  his  very  pockets,  which  he  empties  by  degrees  as  he 
goes  about,  distributing  their  contents  without  ever 
making  a  mistake,  without  stopping,  without  delaying  ; 
and  returns  to  replenish  his  resources  in  a  ceaseless,  in- 
defatigable course,  which  never  flags,  night  nor  day. 
And  you  can  form  no  idea  how  many  workmen  he  has 
under  his  orders,  all  laboring  without  intermission,  all 
requiring  different  things — not  one  of  them  pausing, 
even  for  a  joke ! — not  even  to  say—"  Wait  a  moment ;" 
— they  do  not  understand  what  waiting  means  :  he  must 
always  keep  giving,  giving,  giving.  By  and  by  we 
shall  have  a  long  account  to  give  of  this  wonderful 
steward,  whose  name,  be  it  known,  if  you  have  not  al- 
ready guessed  it,  is  Blood. 

It  is  he  who,  one  fine  day  when  he  was  making  his 
round  of  the  jaws,  found  those  little  germs  I  spoke  of, 
awake  and  eager  for  work  ;  and  he  began  at  once  to 
start  them  with  materials.  He  knew  that  phosphorus 
and  lime  were  what  they  needed  :  he  drew  phosphorus 
and  lime  therefore  out  of  his  pockets, — and,  to  be  very 
exact,  some  other  little  matters  too, — but  these  were  the 
most  important ;  but  I  cannot  stop  to  tell  you  every- 
thing at  once. 

Now,  where  did  the  blood  obtain  this  phosphorus  and 
lime? 

I  expected  you  to  ask  this,  but  if  you  want  everything 
explained  as  we  go  along,  we  shall  not  get  very  far.  In 


THE  TEETH.  37 

fact,  if  I  answer  all  your  questions  I  shall  be  letting  out 
my  secret  too  soon,  and  telling  you  the  end  of  my  story 
almost  before  it  is  begun. 

So  be  it,  however  ;  perhaps  you  will  feel  more  cour- 
age to  go  on,  when  you  know  where  we  are  going. 

The  steward  of  a  country-house  distributes  tiles, 
planks,  paint,  bricks,  lime  ;  but  none  of  these  things  are 
his  own,  as  you  know  ;  he  has  received  them  from  his 
master  :  and,  in  the  same  way,  our  steward  has  nothing 
of  his  own  :  everything  he  distributes  comes  from  the 
master  of  the  house,  and  as  I  have  already  told  you,  this 
master  is  the  stomach.  As  fast  as  the  steward  distrib- 
utes, therefore,  must  the  master  renew  the  stores — and 
renew  them  all,  for  unless  he  does  this,  the  work  would 
stop.  In  proportion  as  the  blood  gives  out  on  all  sides 
the  contents  of  his  pockets,  the  stomach  must  replenish 
them,  and  fill  them  with  everything  necessary,  or  there 
would  be  a  revolution  in  the  house.  Now,  as  there  can. 
be  nothing  in  the  stomach  but  what  has  got  into  it  by 
the  mouth,  it  behooves  us  to  put  into  the  mouth  whatever 
is  needed  for  the  supply  of  our  numerous  workmen ; 
and  this  is  why  we  eat. 

I  perceive  that  I  have  plunged  here  into  an  explana- 
tion out  of  which  I  shall  not  easily  extricate  myself,  for 
I  can  guess  what  you  are  going  to  say  next.  When  you 
began  to  cut  your  teeth,  you  had  eaten  neither  phospho- 
rus nor  lime,  as  nothing  but  milk  had  entered  your 
mouth. 

That  is  true.  Neither  then,  nor  since  then,  have  you 
eaten  those  things,  and  what  is  more,  I  hope  you  never 
will.  And  yet  both  must  have  got  into  your  mouth,  for 
without  them  your  teeth  could  never  have  grown.  How 
are  we  to  get  out  of  this  puzzle  ? 

Suppose  now,  for  a  moment,  that  instead  of  phospho- 


38  THE  TEETH. 

rus  and  lime,  the  little  workmen  in  your  jaws  had  asked 
the  blood  for  sugar  to  make  the  teeth  with.  Fortunate- 
ly this  is  only  a  supposition  ;  otherwise  I  should  be  in 
great  fear  for  the  poor  teeth :  they  would  not  last  very 
long.  Suppose,  further,  that  instead  of  your  eating  the 
lump  of  sugar  which  was  destined  to  turn  into  a  tooth, 
your  mamma  had  melted  it  in  a  glass  of  water,  and  had 
given  it  to  you  to  drink ;  you  could  not  say  you  had 
eaten  sugar,  and  yet  the  sugar  would  really  have  got 
into  your  stomach,  and  there  would  be  nothing  very 
wonderful  if  the  stomach  had  found  it  out  and  given  it 
to  the  blood,  and  the  blood  had  carried  it  off  to  the 
place  where  it  was  wanted.  Now,  allowing  that  the 
lump  of  sugar  was  very  small,  and  the  glass  of  water 
very  large,  the  sugar  might  have  passed  without  your 
perceiving  it,  and  yet  the  tooth  would  have  grown  all 
the  same,  and  without  the  help  of  a  miracle. 

And  this  is  how  it  was.  In  the  milk  which  you  drank 
as  a  baby  there  were  both  phosphorus  and  lime,  though 
in  very  small  quantities.  There  were  many  other  things 
besides  ;  everything  of  course  that  the  blood  required 
for  the  use  of  its  work-people,  because  at  that  time  the 
stomach  was  only  receiving  milk,  and  yet  all  the  work 
was  going  on  as  usual. 

And  therefore,  my  dear  child,  whenever  in  the  course 
of  our  studies,  you  hear  me  describe  such  and  such  a 
thing  as  being  within  us,  say  quietly  to  yourself,  "  that 
also  was  in  the  milk  which  nourished  me  when  I  was  a 
baby.". 

Of  course,  the  same  things  are  in  what  you  eat  now  ; 
only  now  they  come  in  a  form  more  difficult  to  deal  with, 
and  the  labor  of  detaching  them  from  the  surrounding 
ingredients  is  much  greater.  The  whole  business  indeed 
of  this  famous  machine  which  we  are  studying  consists  in 


THE   TEETH.  39 

unfastening  the  links  which  hold  things  together,  and 
in  laying  aside  what  is  useful,  to  be  sent  to  the  blood 
divested  of  the  refuse.  The  stomach  was  too  feeble  in 
,your  infancy  to  have  encountered  the  work  it  has  to  do 
now.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  God  devised  for  the  ben- 
efit of  little  children  that  excellent  nourishment — milk — 
which  contains,  all  ready  for  use,  every  ingredient  the 
blood  wants  ;  and  is  almost,  in  fact,  blood  ready 
made. 

Only  think,  my  child,  what  you  owe  to  her  who  gave 
you  this  nourishment!  It  was  actually  her  blood  she 
was  giving  you ;  her  blood  which  entered  into  your 
veins,  and  which  wrought  within  you  in  the  wonderful 
way  which  I  have  been  describing.  Other  people  gave 
you  sugar-plums,  kisses,  and  toys  ;  but  she  gave  you  the 
teeth  which  crunched  the  sugar-plums,  the  flesh  of  the 
rosy  cheeks  which  got  the  kisses,  and  of  the  little  hands 
which  handled  the  toys.  If  ever  you  can  forget  this, 
you  are  ungrateful  indeed  ! 

Now,  beware  of  going  on  to  ask  me  how  we  know  that 
there  are  so  many  sorts  of  things  in  milk,  or  I  shall  end 
by  getting  angry.  Question  after  question  ;  why,  you 
might  drive  me  in  this  way  to  the  end  of  the  world,  and 
we  should  never  reach  the  point  we  are  aiming  at.  We 
have  already  traveled  far  away  from  the  teeth,  concern- 
ing which  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  at  this  time,  but  our 
lesson  is  nearly  over  and  we  have  scarcely  said  a  word 
abeut  them !  One  cannot  learn  everything  at  once. 
Upon  the  point  in  question  you  must  take  my  word  ;  and 
as  you  may  believe,  I  would  not  run  the  risk  of  being 
contradicted  before  you,  by  those  who  have  authority  on 
the  subject. 

Let  it  suffice  you,  for  to-day,  to  have  gained  some  idea 


40  THE  TEETH. 

of  the  manner  in  which  the  materials  which  constitute 
our  bodies  are  manufactured  within  us.  We  have  got 
at  this  by  talking  of  the  teeth  ;  to-morrow,  it  may  be  the 
saliva,  the  next  day  something  else.  What  I  have  now 
told  you  will  be  of  use  all  the  way  through,  and  I  do  not 
regret  the  time  we  have  given  to  the  subject.  If  you 
have  understood  that  well,  the  time  has  not  been  lost. 


LETTER  V. 

THE  TEETH  (continued.) 

MY  thoughts  return  involuntarily  to  the  subject  I  last 
explained  to  you,  my  dear  child,  and  I  find  that  I  have 
a  great  deal  to  say  about  it  still. 

You  see  now,  I  hope,  that  we  have  something  else  to 
consult  besides  a  dainty  taste  when  we  are  eating  ;  and 
that  if  we  are  to  work  to  any  good  purpose  we  must 
think  a  little  about  this  poor  blood  ;  who  has  so  much  to 
do,  and  who  often  finds  himself  so  much  at  fault,  when 
we  send  him  nothing  but  barley-sugar  and  biscuits  for 
his  support.  It  is  not  with  such  stuff  as  that,  as  you 
may  well  imagine,  that  he  can  be  enabled  to  answer  sat- 
isfactorily to  the  constant  demands  of  his  little  work- 
men, and  we  expose  him  to  the  risk  of  getting  into  dis- 
grace with  them,  if  we  furnish  him  with  no  better  pro- 
visions. 

And  who  is  the  sufferer  ?  Not  I  who  am  giving  you 
this  information,  most  certainly. 

Now,  when  children  hesitate  about  eating  plain  food, 
and  fly  from  beef  to  rush  at  dessert,  they  act  as  a  man 
would  do  who  should  begin  to  build  by  giving  his  work- 
men reeds  instead  of  beams,  and  squares  of  gingerbread 
instead  of  bricks.  A  pretty  house  he  would  have  of  it ; 
— -just  think ! 

On  the  contrary  what  your  mother  asks  you  to  cat, 

(41) 


42  THE  TEETH. 

my  dear  little  epicure,  is  sure  to  be  something  which 
contains  the  indispensable  supplies  for  which  your  blood 
is  craving  ;  for  people  knew  all  about  this  by  experience 
long  before  they  could  explain  the  why  and  the  where- 
fore. But  now  that  you  are  so  much  better  informed 
than  even  the  most  learned  men  were  a  century  ago, 
pouting  and  wry  faces  at  table  are  no  longer  excusable, 
and  I  should  be  sadly  ashamed  of  you  if  I  should  hear 
you  continued  to  make  them. 

And  this  is  what  I  was  more  particularly  thinking  of 
just  now,  when  I  took  up  my  pen  again.  No  doubt  it 
is  very  amusing  to  be  able  to  look  clearly  into  one's 
frame,  and  see  what  goes  on  inside,  but  the  amusement 
anything  affords  is  the  least  important  part  of  it ;  you 
have  begun  to  find  this  out  already,  and  you  will  find  it 
out  more  and  more  every  day.  What  seems  to  me  one 
of  the  great  advantages  of  the  study  we  have  begun  to- 
gether is,  that  at  every  step  you  take  you  will  meet  with 
the  most  practical  and  useful  instruction,  as  well  as  the 
most  unanswerable  reasons  for  doing  what  your  parents 
ask  you  to  do  every  day. 

To  obey  without  knowing  why  is  certainly  possible, 
and  may  be  done  happily  enough.  But  we  obey  more 
readily  and  easily  when  we  understand  the  reason  for 
doing  so ;  and  a  duty  which  one  can  satisfy  oneself 
about,  forces  itself  upon  one  as  a  sort  of  necessity.  And 
what  can  throw  a  stronger  light  on  our  duties  than  a 
thorough  acquaintance  with  ourselves  ? 

It  is  upwards  of  two  thousand  two  hundred  years  ago 
(and  that  is  not  yesterday,  you  must  own !)  since  one  of 
the  greatest  minds  of  the  world — Socrates — never  forget 
that  name — taught  his  disciples,  as  a  foundation  precept, 
this  apparently  simple  maxim,  "  Know  thyself."  He 
meant  this,  it  is  true,  in  a  much  higher  sense  than  we 


THE   TEETH.  4"3 

are  aiming  at  in  these  conversations  of  ours,  but  his  rule 
is  so  practical,  that  although  you  have  only  as  yet  taken 
a  mere  peep  into  one  small  corner  of  self-knowledge,  you 
find,  if  I  am  not  much  mistaken,  that  your  heart  has 
beaten  once  or  twice  rather  faster  than  it  did  before. 
Was  I  wrong,  in  saying  from  the  beginning,  that  we  be- 
come better  as  we  grow  in  knowledge  ?  Is  it  not  true 
that  you  have  felt  more  tenderly  than  ever  towards  her 
who  nourished  you  with  her  milk,  since  I  explained  to 
you  the  value  of  milk  ;  and  that  you  have  kissed  your 
mother's  hand  all  the  more  lovingly  since  you  heard  my 
history  of  the  hand  ?  To  tell  you  the  truth,  if  you  had 
not  done  so,  I  should  have  been  dissatisfied  both  with 
you  and  myself. 

And  wait !  While  we  are  talking  thus,  another  thought 
has  come  into  my  head  about  hands  and  nurses,  which  I 
must  tell  you  of. 

There  is  something  of  the  nurse,  my  child,  in  those 
who  take  the  best  fruits  of  their  intellect  and  heart,  and 
transform  them,  as  it  were,  into  milk,  in  order  that  your 
infant  soul  may  receive  a  nourishment  it  will  be  able  to 
digest  without  too  much  effort.  In  this  way  their  very 
soul  enters  into  you,  and  it  is  but  fair  that  you  should 
reward  them  as  they  deserve.  Young  as  you  are,  too, 
you  have  a  recompense  in  your  power  :  one  more  accept- 
able even  than  Academic  prizes — of  which  it  is  indis- 
pensable not  to  be  too  avaricious — you  can  give  them 
your  love. 

Besides,  it  is  not  only  hands  but  heads  that  are  at 
work  for  you,  and  of  these  many  more  than  you  suppose  ; 
and  your  debt  of  gratitude  is  as  much  due  to  the  one  as 
to  the  other. 

Perhaps  my  first  letter  may  have  led  you  to  suppose 
that  I  was  inclined  to  laugh  at  what  I  called  learned 


44  THE  TEETH. 

men ;  and  they  are  perhaps  a  little  to  blame  for  not 
thinking  often  enough  about  little  girls  ;  but  neverthe- 
less these  men  are  of  the  greatest  use  to  them  in  an  in- 
direct way.  You  owe  them  much,  therefore,  and  with- 
out them  could  have  known  nothing  of  what  I  am  teach- 
ing you.  It  is  very  grand  for  us,  is  it  not,  to  know  that 
there  is  phosphorus  and  lime  in  our  teeth  ?  But  it  took 
generations  of  learned  men,  and  investigations  and  dis- 
coveries without  end,  and  ages  of  laborious  study,  to 
extract  from  nature  this  secret  which  you  have  learnt  in 
five  minutes.  And  whatever  others  you  may  learn  here- 
after, remember  that  it  is  the  same  story  with  all.  While 
profiting,  therefore,  at  your  ease,  by  all  these  conquests 
of  science,  I  would  have  you  hold  in  grateful  recollec- 
tion those  who  have  gained  them  at  so  much  cost  to 
themselves  :  almost  always  at  the  expense  of  their  for- 
tune, sometimes  at  the  peril  of  their  lives. 

There  they  are,  observe,  a  little  knot  of  men  with  no 
sort  of  outward  pretension.  They  speak  a  language 
which  scares  children  away.  They  weigh  dirty  little 
powders  in  apothecaries'  scales  ;  steep  sheets  of  copper 
in  acid-water  ;  and  watch  air-bubbles  passing  through 
bent  glass  tubes,  some  of  which  are  as  dangerous  as 
cannon  balls.  They  scrape  old  bones,  and  slice  scraps 
no  bigger  than  a  pin's  head.  They  keep  their  eyes  fixed 
for  hours  upon  things  they  are  examining  through  micro- 
scopes of  a  dozen  glasses,  and  when  you  go  to  see  what 
they  are  looking  at,  you  find  nothing  at  all.  To  see 
them  at  work,  in  what  they  call  their  laboratories,  you 
would  say  that  they  were  a  set  of  madmen.  But  at  the 
end,  it  is  found,  some  fine  day,  that  they  have  changed 
the  face  of  the  earth ;  have  worked  revolutions  before 
which  emperors  and  kings  bow  in  respect ;  have  enrich- 
ed nations  by  millions  at  a  time  ;  have  revealed  to 


THE   TEETH.  45 

I 

the  human  race,  divine  laws  of  which  it  had  hitherto 
been  ignorant ;  finally,  have  furnished  the  means  of 
teaching  little  boys  and  girls  some  very  curious  things, 
which  will  make  them  more  agreeable  as  well  as  reason- 
able. And  this  is  a  benefit  not  to  be  despised,  since 
these  children  are  destined  one  day  to  become  fathers 
and  mothers,  and  so  to  govern  the  next  generation  ;  and 
the  better  they  themselves  are  instructed,  the  better  this 
will  be  done. 

But  now  let  us  go  back  to  the  poor  teeth,  whom  we 
seem  to  have  forgotten  altogether.  However,  we  knew 
very  well  that  they  would  not  run  away  meantime. 

I  told  you  before  that  it  was  their  business  to  dress 
and  prepare  whatever  was  presented  to  them,  but  the 
reception  they  bestow  is  not  one  which  would  suit  every- 
body's taste,  for  it  consists  in  being  made  mince-meat  of. 
And  in  order  to  do  their  work  in  the  best  way  possible, 
they  divide  their  labor ;  some  cut  up,  others  tear,  and 
others  pound. 

First,  there  are  those  flat  teeth  in  front  of  the  two 
jaws,  just  below  the  nose.  Touch  yours  with  the  tip  of 
your  finger  ;  you  will  find  that  they  terminate  in  sharp- 
edged  blades,  like  knives.  These  are  called  incisors, 
from  the  Latin  word  incidere,  which  means  to  cut,  and 
it  is  with  them  we  bite  bread  and  apples,  where  the  first 
business  is  to  cut.  It  is  with  the  same  teeth  that  lazy 
little  girls  bite  their  thread,  when  they  will  not  take  the 
trouble  to  find  their  scissors  ;  and,  by  the  by,  this  is 
a  very  bad  trick,  because  by  rubbing  them  one  against 
another  in  this  manner  we  wear  them  out,  and,  as  you 
will  noon  discover,  worn-out  teeth  never  grow  again. 

The  next  sort  are  those  little  pointed  teeth,  which 
come  after  the  incisors,  on  each  side  of  both  jaws.  You 
will  easily  find  them  ;  and  if  you  press  against  them  a 


46  THE   TEETH. 

little,  you  will  feel  their  points.  If  we  call  the  first  set 
the  knives  of  the  mouth,  we  may  call  these  its  forks. 
They  serve  to  pierce  whatever  requires  to  be  torn,  and 
they  are  called  canine  teeth,  from  the  Latin  word  cams, 
a  dog,  because  dogs  make  great  use  of  them  in  tearing 
their  food.  They  place  their  paws  upon  it,  and  plung- 
ing the  canine  teeth  into  it,  pull  off  pieces  by  a  jerk  of 
the  head.  Look  into  the  mouth  of  papa's  dog :  you 
will  recognize  these  teeth  by  their  rather  curved  points. 
They  are  longer  than  the  rest,  and  are  called  fangs.  I 
do  not  know,  after  all,  why  they  have  chosen  to  name 
these  teeth  canine,  as  all  carnivorous  animals  have  the 
same  fangs,  and  in  the  lion,  the  tiger,  and  many  other 
species,  they  are  much  more  developed  and  sharper  than 
in  the  dog.  In  cats  they  are  like  little  nails.  How- 
ever, the  name  is  given,  and  we  cannot  alter  it. 

The  last  teeth,  which  are  placed  at  the  back  of  the 
jaw,  are  called  molars,  from  the  Latin  word  mola,  which 
means  a  millstone. 

You  must  be  prepared  to  meet  with  several  Latin 
words  as  we  go  on  ;  but  never  mind  ;  this  will  give  you 
the  opportunity  of  learning  a  little  Latin,  and  so  of 
keeping  your  brother  in  order,  if  he  ever  looks  down 
upon  you  because  he  is  learning  Latin  at  school.  For- 
merly, all  learned  men  wrote  in  Latin,  and  as  they  ruled 
supreme  in  all  such  subjects  as  those  we  are  discussing, 
they  gave  to  everything  such  names  as  they' pleased, 
without  consulting  the  public,  who  did  not  just  then 
trouble  their  heads  about  the  matter.  Now  they  give 
Greek  names,  which  can  hardly  be  called  an  improve- 
ment ;  but  if  they  ever  wish  to  attract  the  attention  of 
little  girls  they  must  translate  their  hard  words  into  our 
own  language. 

To  return  to  our  grinders :  they  perform  the  same 


THE   TEETH.  47 

office  as  a  miller's  millstone  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  grind 
everything  that  comes  in  their  way.  These  teeth  have 
flat,  square  tops,  with  little  inequalities  on  the  surface, 
which  you  can  feel  the  moment  you  lay  your  finger  on 
them.  These  are  the  largest  and  strongest  of  the  three 
sets,  and  with  them  we  even  crack  nuts,  when  we  prefer 
the  risk  of  breaking  our  teeth  to  the  trouble  of  looking 
for  the  nut-crackers ! 

Now,  I  will  answer  for  it  that  you  cannot  explain  to 
me  why  we  always  place  what  is  hard  to  break  between 
the  molars,  and  never  employ  the  incisors  in  the  work  ? 
And  yet  everybody  does  this  alike — from  the  child  to 
the  grown-up  man — and  all  equally  without  thinking  of 
what  they  are  doing. 

I  will  tell  you  the  reason,  however,  if  you  wilj  first 
tell  me  why,  when  you  are  going  to  snip  off  the  tip  of 
your  thread  (which  offers  very  little  resistance),  you  do 
it  with  the  point  of  your  scissors  ;  whereas  you  put  any 
tough  thing  which  is  likely  to  resist  strongly  (a  match, 
for  instance)  close  up  to  their  hinge  ;  particularly  if  you 
have  no  scruple  about  spoiling  the  scissors,  by  the  way ! 

If  you  were  a  grown-up  lad,  and  I  were  teaching  you 
natural  philosophy,  I  should  have  here  a  fine  opportunity 
for  explaining  what  is  called  the  theory  of  the  lever. 
But  I  think  the  theory  of  the  lever  would  frighten  you  ; 
so  we  must  get  out  of  the  difficulty  in  some  other  way. 

I  find,  however,  that  I  have  been  joking  so  much  as  I 
went  along,  that  I  have  but  little  space  left,  and  feel 
quite  ashamed  of  myself.  We  seem  quite  unlucky  over 
these  teeth.  . 

I  have  already  been  scolded  by  people  who  are  not 
altogether  wrong  in  accusing  me  of  losing  my  time  in 
chattering,  first  of  one  thing  and  then  of  another.  They 
complain  that  by  thus  nibbling  at  every  blade  of  grass 


48  THE   TEETH. 

on  the  way-side  we  shall  never  get  to  the  end  of  our 
journey ;  and  there  is  some  truth  in  what  they  say. 
Still,  I  will  whisper  to  you  in  excuse  that  I  thought  we 
might  play  truant  a  little  bit  while  we  were  on  familiar 
ground,  where  naturally  you  were  sure  to  feel  a  particu- 
lar interest  in  everything.  The  hand,  the  tongue,  the 
teeth — these  are  all  old  friends  of  yours — and  I  thought 
you  would  like  to  hear  all  about  them.  By-and-bye  we 
shall  be  in  the  little  black  hole,  and  then  we  shall  get 
on  much  more  rapidly. 


LETTER  VI." 

THE  TEETH  (continued). 

I  LEFT  off  at  the  molars,  which  are  the  teeth  one  se- 
lects to  crack  nuts  with  ;  and  if  I  remember  rightly,  we 
talked  about  different  ways  of  cutting  with  scissors. 

Let  us  look  at  the  subject  from  a  distance,  that  we 
may  understand  it  more  clearly.  Let  us  imagine  a  horse 
drawing  a  heavy  cart  slowly  along.  Ask  it  to  gallop, 
and  it  will  answer,  "  With  all  my  heart !  but  you  must 
give  me  a  lighter  carriage  to  draw."  And  now  fancy 
another  flying  over  the  ground  with  a  gig  behind  it. 
Ask  it  to  exchange  the  gig  for  the  cart,  and  it  will  say, 
"  Yes  ;  but  then  I  shall  have  to  go  slowly." 

Whereby  you  see  that  with  the  same  amount  of 
strength  to  work  with,  one  has  the  choice  of  two  things  : 
either  of  conquering  a  great  resistance  slowly,  or  a  slight 
one  quickly. 

And  it  is  partly  on  this  account,  dear  child,  that  I 
teach  you  so  gradually ;  for  young  heads,  fresh  to  the 
work,  are  less  easily  drawn  along  than  others,  and  have 
but  a  certain  amount  of  strength. 

Hitherto  all  has  been  clear  as  the  day.  Now  take 
your  scissors  in  your  left  hand  ;  hold  the  lower  ring  of 
the  handle  firmly  between  your  thumb  and  closed  hand, 
so  that  the  blade  shall  remain  straight  and  immovable  : 
then  with  your  other  hand  cause  the  upper  ring  to  go  up 
3  (49) 


50  THE   TEETH. 

and  down,  and  watch  the  blade  as  it  moves.  The  whole 
of  it  moves  at  once,  and  is  put  in  motion  by  the  same 
power — viz.,  your  right  hand.  But  the  point  makes  a 
long  circuit  in  the  air,  while  the  hinge  end  makes  only 
a  very  little  one — indeed,  moves  almost  imperceptibly  : 
and,  as  you  may  imagine,  a  different  sort  of  effort  is  re- 
quired from  the  motive  power  (your  hand)  according  as 
resistance  is  made  at  the  point  or  at  the  hinge.  The 
point  goes  full  gallop  :  it  is  the  horse  in  the  gig  ;  the 
light  work  is  for  him.  The  hinge  moves  slowly  ;  it  is 
the  cart-horse,  and  takes  the  heavy  labor. 

I  hope  I  have  made  you  understand 'this,  for  it  explains 
the  cracking  of  our  nut,  though  you  may  not  suspect  it. 
Move  your  scissors  once  more  in  the  same  way.  Now, 
you  have  before  you  the  pattern  of  the  two  jaws  on  one 
side  of  your  face,  from  the  ear  to  the  nose  ;  the  upper 
one,  which  never  moves  (as  you  may  convince  yourself 
by  placing  a  finger  on  your  upper  lip  when  you  either 
speak  or  eat),  and  the  lower  one  which  goes  up  and 
down.  Two  pairs  of  scissors  set  points  to  points  give 
you  the  whole  jaw.  The  incisors.  ZXQ  at  the  points,  they 
gallop  up  and  down,  and  are  worthless  for  doing  hard 
work  ;  the  molars  are  at  the  hinges,  and  move  slowly  ; 
and  if  anything  tough  has  to  be  dealt  with,  it  comes  to 
them  as  a  matter  of  course ;  hence  they  are  the  nut- 
crackers. You  must  own  that  it  is  pleasant  to  reflect 
thus  upon  what  we  are  doing  every  day,  and  the  next 
time  you  see  a  stonemason  moving  stones  of  twenty  times 
his  own  weight  with  his  iron  bar,  ask  your  papa  to  ex- 
plain to  you  the  principle  of  the  lever.  After  what  I 
have  told  you,  you  will  understand  it  very  readily,  or  at 
least  enough  of  it  to  satisfy  your  mind. 

But,  besides  this  power  of  moving  up  and  down,  the 
lower  jaw  possesses  another  less  obvious  one,  by  means 


THE   TEETH.  51 

of  which  it  goes  from  right  to  left.  ..  This  is  precisely 
what  naughty  children  make  use  of  when  they  grind 
their  teeth  :  not  that  I  mean  this  remark  for  you,  for  I 
have  a  better  opinion  of  you  than  to  suppose  you  do  such 
things.  Those  who  make  such  bad  use  of  their  jaws  de- 
serve to  lose  the  power  of  ever  moving  them  thus,  and 
then  they  would  find  themselves  sadly  at  a  loss  how  to 
chew  their  bread — for  their  molars  would  be  of  but  little 
service  to  them  in  such  a  case  ;  as  it  is  chiefly  by  this 
second  action  of  the  jaw  that  the  food  is  pounded.  Try 
to  chew  a  bit  of  bread  by  only  moving  your  jaw  up  and 
down,  and  you  will  soon  tire  of  the  attempt. 

One  word  more  to  complete  my  description  of  the 
teeth  :  that  portion  of  them  which  is  in  the  jaw  is  called 
the  root;  and  the  incisors,  which  cannot  work  hard  be- 
cause, like  the  gig-horses,  they  have  but  little  resisting 
power,  possess  only  small  and  short  roots  ;  whereas  tho 
canines,  whose  duty  it  is  to  tear  the  food  sideways,  would 
run  the  risk  of  being  dragged  out  and  left  sticking  in 
the  substances  they  are  at  work  upon,  if  they  were  not 
well  secured  ;  these,  therefore,  have  roots  which  go  much 
deeper  into  the  jaw,  and  in  consequence  of  this  they  give 
us  more  pain  than  the  others  when  the  dentist  extracts 
them  :  those  famous  eye-teeth,  which  so  terrify  people  on 
such  occasions,  are  the  canines  of  the  upper  jaw,  and  lie, 
in  fact,  just  below  the  eye. 

The  molars  meanwhile  would  be  in  danger  of  being 
shaken  in  the  side  way  movement,  while  chewing :  so 
they  do  as  you  would  do  if  you  were  pushed  aside.  Now 
you  would  throw  out  your  feet  right  and  left  in  order  to 
steady  yourself,  and  thus  the  molars,  which  have  always 
two  roots,  throw  them  out  right  and  left  for  the  same 
purpose.  Some  have  three,  some  four,  and  they  require 
no  less  for  the  business  they  have  to  do. 


52  THE  TEETH. 

Above  the  root  comes  what  is  called  the  crown  ;  that 
is  the  part  of  the  tooth  which  is  exposed  to  the  air  •  the 
part  which  does  the  work,  and  which  bears  the  brunt  of 
all  the  rubbing.  Now,  however  hard  it  may  be,  it  would 
soon  end  in  being  worn  out  by  all  this  fun  if  it  were  not 
covered  by  a  still  harder  substance,  which  is  called 
enamel.  The  enamel  which  forms  the  coating  of  china 
plates,  and  which  you  can  easily  distinguish  by  examin- 
ing a  broken  plate,  will  give  you  a  very  exact  idea  of  it. 
It  is  this  enamel  which  gives  the  teeth  the  polish  and 
brilliancy  we  so  much  admire,  and  it  is  desirable  to  be 
very  careful  of  it,  not  out  of  vanity,  though  there  is  no 
objection  to  a  little  vanity  on  the  subject,  but  because 
the  enamel  is  the  protector  of  the  teeth,  and  when  that 
is  destroyed,  you  may  say  good-bye  to  the  teeth  them- 
selves. All  acids  eat  into  the  enamel,  as  vinegar  or 
lemon-juice  does  into  marble  ;  and  one  of  the  best  means 
of  preserving  this  protecting  armor  of  the  teeth  is  never 
to  eat  the  unripe  windfalls  of  fruit,  which  I  have  seen 
unreasonable  children  pick  up  in  orchards  and  devour  so 
recklessly.  They  give  sufficient  warning,  by  their  acidity, 
that  they  are  not  fit  for  food,  and  when  this  warning  is 
neglected,  they  take  their  revenge  by  corroding  the 
enamel  of  the  teeth ;  not  to  speak  of  the  disturbance 
which  they  afterwards  cause  in  the  poor  stomach. 

I  said  that  without  this  coating  of  enamel,  the  teeth 
would  be  prematurely  worn  out,  the  reason  of  which  is, 
that  the  teeth  have  not  the  property  of  growing  again, 
as  the  nails  and  hair  have.  When  those  little  germs  of 
which  I  spoke  when  we  began  to  describe  the  teeth,  have 
finished  their  work,  they  perish  and  fall  out,  like  masons 
who,  when  they  have  built  the  house,  take  their  depar- 
ture forever. 

But  the  "  forever  "  wants  explanation.   For  such  stem 


THE   TEETH.  53 

conditions  would  fall  hard  on  very  little  children,  who, 
not  having  come  to  their  reason,  cannot  be  expected  to 
understand  the  great  value  of  their  teeth,  and  take  all 
the  care  they  need  of  them.  So  to  them  a  second  chance 
is  given. 

Your  first  teeth,  the  milk-teeth,  as  they  are  called,  count 
for  nothing  :  they  are  a  kind  of  specimen,  just  to  serve 
while  you  are  very  young. 

When  you  are  approaching  what  is  called  the  age  of 
reason,  (and  this  word  implies  a  great  deal,  my  dear 
child,)  the  real  teeth,  the  teeth  which  are  to  serve  you 
for  life,  begin  to  whisper  among  themselves,  "Now, 
here  is  a  little  girl  who  is  becoming  reasonable,  and 
who  will  soon,  or  else  never,  be  fit  to  take  charge  of  her 
teeth."  No  sooner  said  than  done  :  other  masons  set  to 
work  in  other  cells,  placed  under  the  first  set,  and  as 
the  permanent  teeth  keep  growing  and  growing,  they 
gradually  push  out  the  milk-teeth,  which  were  only 
keeping  their  places  ready  for  them  till  they  came. 

This  is  just  your  case  at  present,  and  you  now  under- 
stand your  responsibility,  and  how  necessary  it  is  to 
preserve  those  good  teeth  which  have  placed  so  generous 
a  confidence  in  your  care  of  them,  and  which,  once  gone, 
can  never  be  replaced. 

You  have  no  loss  by  the  exchange  ;  you  had  twenty- 
four  at  first,  you  will  now  have  twenty-eight.  Twenty- 
eight,  did  I  say  ?  nay,  you  will  have  thirty-two  ;  but  the 
last  four  will  come  later  still.  The  last  molars  on  each 
side,  above  and  below,  in  both  jaws,  will  not  make  their 
appearance  till  you  are  grown  up.  They  are  a  fastidi- 
ous and  timid  set,  and  will  not  run  any  risks  ;  and  they 
are  called  wisdom-teeth,  because  they  do  not  appear  till 
we  are  supposed  to  have  arrived  at  years  of  discretion. 
Some  people  do  not  cut  them  before  they  are  thirty,  and 


54  THE   TEETH. 

you  will  agree  that,  if  they  have  not  become  wise  by 
that  time,  they  have  but  a  very  poor  chance  of  ever 
being  so  1 

There  is  much  more  still  to  be  said  about  the  teeth  ; 
but  I  think  I  have  told  you  quite  enough  to  teach  you 
the  importance  of  these  little  bony  possessions  of  yours, 
which  children  do  not  always  value  as  they  deserve,  and 
whose  safety  they  endanger  as  carelessly  as  if  they  had 
fresh  supplies  of  them  ready  in  their  pockets.  If  so 
many  skilful  contrivances  have  been  devised  for  enabling 
us  to  masticate  our  food  properly,  it  is  clear  that  this 
process  is  not  an  unimportant  one.  Those,  therefore, 
who  swallow  a  mouthful  after  two  or  three  turns,  forget 
that  they  are  thereby  forcing  the  stomach  to  do  the 
work  the  teeth  have  neglected  to  do,  and  this  is  very 
bad  economy,  I  can  assure  you.  You  will  see  hereafter, 
when  we  speak  about  animals,  that  by  a  marvellous 
compensation  of  nature,  the  power  of  the  stomach  is 
always  great  in  proportion  to  the  mefficiency  of  the 
teeth,  and  that  by  the  same  rule,  it  is  weakest  when  the 
jaws  are  best  furnished.  Now,  no  jaw  is  more  com- 
pletely furnished  than  the  human  one  ;  it  is  clear,  then, 
that  it  should  do  its  own  work  and  not  leave  it  to  be 
done  by  those  who  are  less  able :  and  the  little  girl  who, 
in  order  to  finish  her  dinner  more  quickly,  shirks  the 
use  of  her  teeth,  and  sends  food,  half  chewed,  into  her 
stomach,  is  like  a  man  who,  having  two  servants,  the 
one  strong  and  vigorous,  the  other  feeble  and  delicate, 
allows  the  first  to  dawdle  at  his  ease,  and  puts  all  the 
hard  work  on  the  other.  He  would  be  very  unjust  in 
so  doing,  would  he  not  ?  And  as  injustice  always  meets 
with  its  reward,  his  work  is  sure  to  be  badly  done. 

Now,  the  work  in  question  consists  in  reducing  what 
we  eat  into  a  sort  of  pulp  or  liquid  paste,  from  which  the 


THE   TEETH.  55 

blood  extracts  at  last  whatever  it  requires.  But  the 
teeth  may  bite  and  tear  the  materials  as  they  please, 
they  can  make  nothing  of  them  but  a  powder,  which 
would  never  turn  into  a  pulp,  if  during  their  labors  they 
were  not  assisted  by  an  indispensable  auxiliary.  To 
make  pap  for  infants  what  do  we  add  to  the  bread  after 
it  is  cut  in  little  bits  ?  Without  being  a  very  clever 
cook,  you  will  know  that  it  is  water  which  is  wanted. 
And  thus,  to  assist  us  in  making  pap  for  the  blood, 
Providence  has  furnished  us  with  a  number  of  small 
spongy  organs  within  the  mouth,  which  are  always  filled 
with  water.  These  are  called  salivary  glands.  This 
water  oozes  out  from  them  of  itself,  on  the  least  move- 
ment of  the  jaw,  which  presses  upon  the  sponges  as  it 
goes  up  and  down.  The  name  of  this  water,  as  I  need 
scarcely  tell  you,  is  saliva. 

When  I  call  it  water,  it  is  not  merely  from  its  resem- 
blance ;  saliva  is  really  pure  water  with  a  little  albumen 
added.  Do  not  be  afraid  of  that  word — it  is  not  so 
alarming  as  it  appears  to  be.  It  means  simply  the  sub- 
stance you  know  as  the  white  of  egg.  There  is  also  a 
little  soda  in  the  water,  which  you  know  is  one  of  the 
ingredients  of  which  soap  is  made.  And  this  explains 
why  the  saliva  becomes  frothy,  when  the  cheeks  and 
tongue  set  it  in  motion  in  the  mouth  while  we  are  talk- 
ing ;  just  as  the  whites  of  egg,  or  soapy  water,  become 
frothy  when  whipped  up  or  beaten  in  a  basin. 

But  the  albumen  and  the  soda  have  not  been  added  to 
the  saliva,  in  our  case,  merely  to  make  it  frothy  ;  that 
would  have  been  of  very  little  use.  They  give  to  the 
water  a  greater  power  to  dissolve  the  food  into  paste, 
and  thus  to*  begin  that  series  of  transformations  by 
which  it  gradually  becomes  the  fine  red  blood  which 


56  THE  TEETH. 

shows  itself  in  little  drops  at  the  tip  of  your  finger 
when  you  have  been  using  your  needle  awkwardly. 

When  once  minced  up  by  the  teeth  and  moistened  by 
the  saliva,  the  food  is  reduced  to  a  state  of  pulp,  and 
having  nothing  further  to  do  in  the  mouth,  is  ready  to 
pass  forward.  But  getting  out  of  the  mouth  on  its  jour- 
ney downwards  is  not  so  simple  an  affair  as  getting  into 
it  by  fas  front  door,  as  it  did  at  first.  Swallowing  is  in 
fact  a  complicated  action,  and  not  to  be  explained  in 
half  a  dozen  words,  and  I  think  we  have  already  chatted 
enough  for  to-day.  I  only  wish  I  may  not  have  tired 
you  out  with  these  interminable  teeth !  But  you  may 
expect  something  quite  new  when  I  begin  again. 


LETTER  VII. 

THE  THROAT. 

You  remember  a  certain  door-keeper,  or  porter,  of 
whom  we  have  already  spoken  a  good  deal,  who  resides 
in  the  mouth — the  sense  of  taste,  I  mean  ? 

Well,  it  is  a  porter's  business  to  sweep  out  the  en- 
trance to  a  house,  and  you  may  always  recognize  him  in 
the  courtyard  by  his  broom. 

And  accordingly  our  porter  too  has  a  broom  specially 
placed  at  his  service,  namely,  the  tongue ;  and  an  un- 
rivalled broom  it  is — for  it  is  self-acting,  never  wears 
out,  and  makes  no  dust — qualities  we  cannot  succeed  in 
obtaining  in  any  brooms  of  our  own  manufacture. 

When  the  time  has  come  for  the  pounded  mouthful 
(described  in  the  last  chapter)  to  travel  forward  (the 
teeth  having  properly  prepared  it),  the  broom  begins  its 
work  ;  scouring  all  along  the  gums,  twisting  and  turning 
right  and  left,  backwards  and  forwards,  up  and  down  ; 
picking  up  the  least  grains  of  the  pulp  which  have  been 
manufactured  in  the  mouth  ;  and  as  the  heap  increases, 
it  makes  itself  into  a  shovel — another  accomplishment 
one  would  scarcely  have  expected  it  to  possess.  What 
it  gathers  together  thus,  rolls  by  degrees  on  its  surface 
into  a  ball,  which  at  last  finds  itself  fixed  between  the 
palate  and  the  tongue  in  such  a  manner  that  it  cannot 
escape  ;  at  which  moment  the  tongue  presses  its  tip 
3*  '57) 


58  THE   THKOAT. 

against  the  upper  front  teeth,  forms  of  itself  an  inclined 
plane,  and but  stop !  we  are  getting  on  too  fast. 

At  the  back  of  the  mouth,  (which  is  the  antechamber, 
as  we  said  before,)  is  a  sort  of  lobby,  separated  from  the 
mouth  by  a  little  fleshy  tongue^,  suspended  to  the  pal- 
ate, exactly  like  those  tapestry  curtains  which  are  some- 
times hung  between  two  rooms,  under  which  one  is  ena- 
bled to  pass,  by  just  lifting  them  up. 

If  this  lobby  led  only  from  the  mouth  to  the  stomach, 
the  act  of  swallowing  would  be  the  simplest  thing  in 
the  world ;  the  tongue  would  be  raised,  the  pounded 
ball  would  glide  on,  would  pass  under  the  curtain,  and 
then  good-bye  to  it.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  archi- 
tect of  the  house  seems  to  have  economized  his  construc- 
tion-apparatus here.  The  lobby  serves  two  purposes  ; 
it  is  the  passage  from  the  mouth  to  the  stomach,  as  well 
as  from  the  nose  to  the  lungs. 

The  air  we  breathe  has  its  two  separate  doors  there — 
one  opening  towards  the  nose,  the  other  towards  the 
lungs  ;  through  neither  of  which  is  any  sort  of  food 
allowed  to  pass.  But,  as  you  may  imagine,  the  food 
itself  knows  nothing  of  such  spiteful  restraints,  and  it 
is  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  to  it  through  which 
of  the  doors  it  passes.  Not  unlike  a  good  many  chil- 
dren who,  though  they  are  reasonable  creatures,  will 
push  their  way  into  places  where  they  have  been  forbid- 
den to  go  ;  and  who  can  expect  a  pulpy  food-ball  to  be 
more  reasonable  than  a  child  ?  It  was  necessary,  there- 
fore, so  to  arrange  matters  that  there  should  be  no  choice 
on  the  subject ;  that  when  the  food-ball  got  into  the 
lobby  it  should  find  no  door  open  but  its  own,  namely, 
that  which  led  to  the  stomach.  And  that  is  exactly 
what  is  done. 

You  have  not,  perhaps,  remarked  that  in  the  act  of 


THE   THROAT.  59 

swallowing,  something  rises  and  contracts  itself  at  the 
same  moment  in  your  throat,  producing  a  kind  of  inter- 
nal convulsion  which  jerks  whatever  is  inside.  People 
do  not  think  about  it  when  they  are  eating,  because  it  is 
an  involuntary  action,  and  their  attention  is  otherwise 
engaged. 

But  try  to  swallow  when  there  is  nothing  in  your 
mouth,  and  you  will  perceive  what  I  mean  at  once. 

Now,  imagine  our  lobby  at  the  back  of  the  throat  as 
a  small  closet,  with  a  doorway  in  its  wall,  half-way  up, 
the  doorway  being  closed  by  a  curtain.  In  the  ceiling 
is  a  hole,  which  leads  to  the  nose  ;  in  the  floor  two  large 
tubes  open  out ;  the  front  one  leading  to  the  lungs,  the 
one  behind,  to  the  stomach. 

Now  swallow,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  happens.  The 
curtain  rises  up  and  clings  to  the  ceiling,  and  thus  the 
passage  to  the  nose  is  stopped  up.  The  lung-tube  rises 
along  the  wall,  and  hides  itself  under  the  door,  contract- 
ing itself,  and  making  itself  quite  small,  as  if  it  wished 
to  leave  plenty  of  room  for  the  mouthful  of  food  which 
is  about  to  pass  over  it ;  and,  for  still  greater  security, 
at  the  very  moment  it  rises,  it  pushes  against  a  small 
trap-door  which  shuts  up  its  mouth.  No  other  road  re- 
mains, therefore,  but  through  the  tube  which  leads  to 
the  stomach ;  the  pulpy  mouthful  drops  straight  therein, 
without  risk  of  mistake,  and  when  it  is  once  there,  every- 
thing readjusts  itself  as  before. 

These  are  very  ingenious  contrivances,  and  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  if  we  would  but  study  the  wonders 
of  the  marvellous  and  varied  machinery  which  is  con- 
stantly at  work  in  our  behalf  within  us,  we  should  be 
much  better  employed  than  in  learning  things  from 
which  no  practical  good  can  be  derived.  Moreover,  we 
should  be  ashamed  to  trust,  like  the  lower  animals,  only 


60  THE   THROAT. 

to  our  instinct,  (which,  after  all,  is  much  less  developed 
in  us  than  in  them,)  for  blindly  escaping  the  thousand 
chances  of  destruction  that  beset  a  structure  so  fragile 
and  delicate  in  its  contrivances  as  the  human  body. 
Besides,  it  is  not  only  our  own  machinery  that  is  en- 
trusted to  us,  we  are  liable  to  be  responsible  for  that  of 
others,  whose  development  it  is  our  duty  to  guard  and 
watch  ;  and  how  can  we  do  this  with  a  safe  conscience, 
if  we  are  ignorant  of  the  construction,  the  action,  the 
laws  of  all  sorts  which  the  great  Artificer  has,  so  to 
speak,  made  use  of  in  forming  our  bodies  ? 

When  you,  in  your  turn,  are  a  mother,  you  dear  little 
rogue,  who  sit  there  opening  wide  your  bright  eyes,  and 
not  comprehending  a  word  of  what  I  am  saying,  you 
will  be  glad  that  you  were  taught  when  you  were  little, 
how  your  own  little  girl  ought  to  be  managed.  You 
will  find  a  hundred  opportunities  of  making  good  use, 
in  her  behalf,  of  what  you  and  I  are  learning  together, 
and  in  the  meantime  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
not  yourself  profit  by  the  knowledge  you  have  gained. 

I  am  quite  sure,  for  instance,  that  in  repeating  to  your 
child  the  simple  rule  of  politeness,  with  which  everybody 
is  acquainted,  "  Never  talk  when  you  are  eating",  you  will 
be  very  careful  to  add,  "  and  especially  when  you  are 
swallowing"  for  reasons  I  am  about  to  detail. 

When  we  want  to  speak  we  have  to  drive  the  air  from 
the  lungs  into  the  mouth,  and  our  words  are  sounds  pro- 
duced by  this  air  as  it  passes  through.  This  is  the  rea- 
son why  I  advise  you  to  go  on  gently,  and  make  the 
proper  stops  in  reading  aloud :  to  take  breath,  in  fact,  as 
it  is  called ;  otherwise,  breath  would  all  at  once  fail 
you,  and  you  would  be  obliged  to  stop  short  in  the 
middle  of  a  sentence  and  wait  like  a  simpleton  till  'you 
had  refilled  the  lungs  with  air  by  breathing.  It  was  for 


THE  THROAT.  61 

this  purpose,  also,  and  not  for  mere  economy's  sake,  as 
you  may  have  thought,  that  the  little  cross-road  of  four 
doors  has  been  placed  at  the  back  of  the  mouth,  enabling 
it  to  communicate  at  pleasure  with  either  the  lungs  or 
the  stomach.  It  is  a  dangerous  passage  for  food-parcels' 
making  their  way  to  the  stomach  ;  but  if  you'could  sub- 
stitute for  it,  as  it  may  have  occurred  to  you  to  do 
lately,  a  simple  tube  going  directly  to  the  stomach, — be- 
hold !  you  would  find  yourself  dumb  ; — a  serious  misfor- 
tune, ch  ?  for  a  little  girl !  But  come,  I  am  quizzing  too 
much,  so  console  yourself.  I  know  many  grown-up  peo- 
ple who  would  be  at  least  as  sorry  as  yourself. 

To  return  to  our  subject.  We  have  said  that,  in  order 
to  guard  against  accidents,  the  lung-tube  is  closed  at  the 
moment  we  are  about  to  swallow.  But  if  by  any  unlucky 
chance  the  air  is  coming  up  from  the  lungs  at  the  same 
moment,  it  must  have  a  free  passage.  Its  tube  cannot 
help  returning  to  its  place ;  the  little  trap-door  which 
shuts  up  the  opening  opens  whether  or  no,  and  then 
adieu  to  all  the  precautions  of  good  Mother  Nature! 
The  mouthful  when  it  drops,  falls  outside  of  its  proper 
tube — that  is  to  say,  into  the  other,  which  is  exactly  in 
front  of  it,  and  we  find  that  we  have  swallowed  the 
wrong  way. 

You  know  what  happens  in  such  a  case.  You  cough 
and  cough  till  you  are  torn  to  pieces,  till  you  grow  scar- 
let, or  even  blue  in  the  face  ;  till  you  lose  your  breath  ; 
till  your  body  trembles  ;  till  your  eyes  start  out  of  their 
sockets.  Let  who  will  be  there,  there  is  no  resource  but 
to  hide  your  face  in  your  handkerchief.  The  tube,  which 
was  only  made  for  the  passage  of  air,  on  finding  an  in- 
truder forcing  an  entrance,  does  its  utmost  to  drive  it 
back  through  the  door.  Then  the  lungs,  which  would 
be  destroyed  by  its  getting  to  them,  come  to  the  assist- 


62  .  THE   THROAT. 

ance  of  the  faithful  servant  who  is  struggling  for  their 
protection  :  they  agitate  themselves  violently,  and  send 
forth  gusts  of  air  which  drive  all  before  them.  Thence 
arises  the  cough,  and  by  this  means  at  last  the  enemy  is 
thrust  out  of  the  mouth,  like  dust  before  the  wind.  And 
it  is  only  when  the  passages  are  cleared  that  the  storm 
subsides.  But  the  commotion  is  no  laughing  matter,  I 
assure  you  ;  for  if  one  had  swallowed  a  little  too  far  the 
wrong  way,  or  if  the  substance  swallowed  had  been  too 
heavy  for  the  air-tube,  aided  by  the  lungs,  to  eject  within 
a  certain  time,  death  would  have  ensued :  instances  of 
which  are  by  no  means  unknown.  Nature  does  nothing 
in  vain  ;  this  is  no  case  of  a  man  frightened  by  a  mouse. 
When  you  find  your  whole  being  concentrating  its  efforts 
to  one  point,  and  betraying  such  distress,  at  an  accident 
apparently  so  trifling,  you  may  be  sure  there  is  danger, 
and  real  danger  too  ;  and  if  you  doubt  it,  that  makes  no 
difference — happily  for  you. 

Now  you  have  learned  why  little  girls  should  not  at- 
tempt to  talk  and  swallow  at  the  same  time,  and,  I  may 
add,  still  less  laugh ;  for  laughing  is  a  kind  of  somersault, 
performed  by  the  lungs,  and  is  always  accompanied  by 
the  ejectment  of  a  great  deal  more  breath  than  is  neces- 
sary in  speaking,  so  that  the  jerks  it  occasions  derange 
still  more  the  wise  provisions  made  to  protect  life  when- 
ever we  swallow  anything,  and  therefore  we  are  more 
apt  to  swallow  the  wrong  way  while  laughing  than  while 
speaking. 

Need  I  say  that  we  ought  equally  to  guard  against 
making  others  laugh  or  talk  ;  or  exciting,  or  frightening 
them,  while  they  are  swallowing  ;  in  short,  avoid  doing 
anything  to  create  a  sudden  shock  which  might  suddenly 
force  the  air  out  of  their  lungs,  and  cause  them  in  the 
same  manner  to  swallow  the  wrong  way  ?  Politeness 


THE   THROAT.  63 

requires  this  from  us,  and  what  I  have  now  said  will  fix 
tho  lesson  still  more  strongly  on  your  mind.  What 
would  become  of  you  if  you  were  to  see  a  person  die  in 
your  presence  in  consequence  of  some  foolish  joke,  how- 
ever apparently  innocent  ? 

Not  to  conclude  with  so  painful  a  picture,  I  will,  be- 
fore we  part,  give  you  the  right  names  of  the  curtain, 
the  lobby  or  closet,  and  the  tubes  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking. 

The  curtain  is  called  the  Soft  Palate. 

The  lobby,  the  Pharynx. 

The  tube  which  leads  to  the  stomach,  the  (Esophagus. 

The  tube  leading  to  the  lungs,  the  Larynx. 

The  opening  of  this  tube  is  the  Glottis,  and  the  little 
trap-door  which  closes  it  when  one  swallows,  is  the  Epi- 
glottis. 

You  must  excuse  my  attempting  to  explain  the  mean- 
ings of  all  these  names  ;  it  would  take  me  too  long  to 
do  so.  After  all,  the  mere  names  are  nothing.  If  I 
have  succeeded  in  making  you  understand  how  all  the 
different  parts  act,  you  may  call  them  what  you  like. 

Here  we  will  rest.  We  are  now  on  our  way  to  where 
we  shall  see  the  large  apartments,  and  be  introduced  to 
the  master,  that  head  of  the  house,  whom  no  one  can 
approach  without  so  many  ceremonies. 


LETTER   VIII. 

THE   STOMACH. 

ONCE  in  the  oesophagus  (you  remember  this  is  the 
name  of  the  tube  which  leads  to  the  stomach),  the  mouth- 
ful of  food  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  proceed  on  its  way. 
All  along  this  tube  there  is  a  succession  of  small  elastic 
rings,*  which  contract  behind  the  food  to  force  it  for- 
ward, and  widen  before  it  to  give  it  free  passage.  They 
thus  propel  it  forward,  one  after  another,  till  it  reaches 
the  entrance  to  the  stomach,  into  which  the  last  ring 
pushes  it,  closing  upon  it  at  the  same  time. 

Have  you  ever  observed  a  worm  or  a  leech  in  motion  ? 
You  see  a  successive  swelling  up  of  the  whole  surface  of 
its  body,  as  the  creature  gradually  pushes  forward,  just 
as  if  there  was  something  in  its  inside  rolling  along  from 
the  tail  to  the  head.  Such  is  precisely  the  appearance 
which  the  oesophagus  would  present  to  you,  as  the  food 
passes  down  it,  if  you  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  it  in 
action ;  and  this  has  been  called  the  vermicular  move-, 
ment,  in  consequence  of  its  resemblance  to  the  movement 
of  a  worm. 

Here  I  wish  to  draw  your  attention  to  the  very  im- 
portant fact,  that  this  movement  is  in  one  respect  of  a 
quite  different  nature  from  that  of  your  thumb  when  you 
take  hold  of  a  bit  of  bread,  or  that  of  your  jaw  when  you 

*  Properly,  contractile  circular  fibres. 
(64) 


THE   STOMACH.  65 

bite  with  your  teeth,  or  of  your  tongue,  &c.,  when  you 
swallow.  All  these  actions  belong  to  yourself,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent ;  they  are  voluntary,  and  under  your  own 
guidance  ;  that  is,  you  may  perform  them  or  not,  as  you 
choose.  There  is  a  constant  connexion  between  you 
and  them,  and  you  knew  what  I  meant  at  once  as  I 
named  each  of  them  in  succession.  But  in  speaking  of 
this  other  movement  we  enter  upon  another  world,  of 
which  you  know  nothing.  Here  is  the  black  hole  of 
which  I  spoke.  The  little  rings  of  the  oesophagus  per- 
form their  work  by  themselves,  and  you  have  no  power 
in  the  matter.  Not  only  do  they  move  independently 
of  you,  but  were  you  to  take  it  into  your  head  to  stop 
them,  it  would  be  about  as  wise  a  proceeding  as  if  you 
were  to  talk  to  them.  We  wilt  speak  hereafter,  in  an- 
other place,  of  these  impertinent  servants,  who  do  not 
recognise  your  authority,  and  with  whom  we  shall  have 
constantly  to  do,  throughout  what  remains  to  be  said  on 
the  subject  of  eating.  The  truth  is,  your  body  is  like  a 
little  kingdom,  of  which  you  have  to  be  the  queen,  but 
queen  of  the  frontiers  only.  The  arms,  the  legs,  the 
lips,  the  eyelids,  all  the  exterior  parts,  are  your  very 
humble  servants  ;  at  your  slightest  bidding  they  move 
or  keep  still :  your  will  is  their  law.  But  in  the  interior 
you  are  quite  unknown.  There,  there  is  a  little  republic 
to  itself,  ruling  itself  independently  of  your  orders,  which 
it  would  laugh  at,  if  you  attempted  to  issue  them. 

This  republic,  to  make  use  of  another  metaphor,  is  the 
kitchen  of  the  body.  It  is  there  they  make  blood,  as 
they  know  how  ;  putting  it  to  all  sorts  of  uses  for  your 
advantage,  it  is  true,  but  without  your  consent.  You 
are  in  the  position  of  the  lady  of  a  house  whose  servants 
have  shut  the  door  of  the  kitchen  in  her  face  that  they 
may  carry  on  their  business  after  their  own  fashion, 


66  THE   STOMACH. 

leaving  only  the  housemaid  and  coachman  at  her  com- 
mand. It  may  be  humiliating,  perhaps,  to  be  thus  only 
partially  mistress  at  home  ;  but  what  can  you  do,  my 
little  demi-queen  ?•  I  will  tell  you :  make  up  your  mind 
to  govern  the  subjects  under  your  orders  as  wisely  as 
possible ;  and,  as  to  the  rest,  be  content  with  the  only 
resource  left  you  :  viz.,  that  of  looking  in  at  the  window 
of  the  kitchen  to  see  what  goes  on  there ! 

The  stomach  is  the  head  cook :  the  president  of  the 
internal  republic.  He  has  charge  of  the  stoves  ;  the 
whole  weight  of  affairs  is  on  his  hands,  and  he  provides 
for  the  interests  of  all.  JSsop  taught  us  this,  long  ago, 
in  his  fable  of  "  The  Belly  and  Members."*  It  is  a  very 
good  fable,  and  was  wisely  appealed  to  once  by  a  Roman 
Consul  to  appease  a  disturbance  in  the  State.  But  the 
application  was  not  quite  fair  in  one  respect ;  and  since 
I  have  started  the  subject,  I  will  satisfy  myself  by  ex- 
plaining to  you  where  it  was  wrong.  The  time  will  not 
be  wasted,  for  this  fable  has  furnished  information  to  a 
great  many  people  about  the  economy  of  their  insides, 
and  possibly  to  you  ;  and  I  should  like  you  to  know  the 
exact  truth  of  all  the  particulars  alluded  to.  Whether 
aEsop  understood  them  all,  I  cannot  pretend  to  say  ;  but 
the  application  by  the  old  Roman  to  the  quarrel  between 
the  big-wig  senators  and  the  people  was  on  one  point 
decidedly  unjust ;  for  there  was,  as  far  as  facts  are  con- 
cerned, something  to  be  said  on  behalf  of  the  stomach, 
which  Consul  Menenius  seems  not  to  have  thought  of. 

*  La  Fontaine's  translation  is  quoted  in  the  French  original,  where 
the  name  of  the  fable  is  "  Messer  Gaster,"  a  more  correct  title  than 
our  own.  Gaster  is  a  Greek  word  signifying  stomach ;  and  it  is 
strictly  the  stomach  which  is  meant  in  the  fable.  From  this  comes, 
too,  the  medical  term  gastritis,  the  name  of  a  disease  of  the  stomach. 
— TB. 


THE  STOitACH.  67 

When  you  come  to  this  part  of  the  Roman  history  you 
will  learn  that  the  Roman  Senate  was  a  large  and  fat 
stomach,  which  did,  it  is  true,  furnish  good  nourishment 
to  the  other  members  of  the  State, -but  kept  the  best 
share  for  itself.  We  may  say  this  now  without  risk  of 
offence,  it  having  been  dead  for  so  long  a  time.  Our 
stomach  is  the  leanest,  slightest,  frailest  part  of  our 
body.  It  is  master  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  said  in 
the  Gospel,  "  Let  him  that  is  first  among  you  be  the  ser- 
vant of  the  others."  It  receives  everything,  but  it  gives 
everything  back,  and  keeps  nothing,  or  almost  nothing, 
for  itself.  Between  ourselves,  Consul  Menemus,  the 
advocate  of  the  Senate,  had  no  business  to  talk  to  the 
poor  wretches  at  Rome  of  any  comparison  between  their 
government  and  so  careful  an  administrator  of  the  pub- 
lic good  as  a  human  stomach.  He  should  have  taken 
his  subject  of  comparison  from  the  families  of  geese  or 
ducks — animals  which  have  no  teeth.  These  have  strong, 
well-grown  stomachs  —  true  Roman  senators  —  whose 
stoutness  is  in  proportion  to  the  work  given  them  to  do. 
But  man  provides  his  with  work  already  prepared  by 
chewing,  supposing  him  to  have  had  the  sense  to  chew 
it,  of  course.  It  was  not  from  a  comparison  with  man, 
therefore,  that  Menenius  ought  to  have  got  his  boasted 
apologue,  which  was  but  a  poor  jest  on  the  subject. 

You  did  not  expect,  my  dear,  to  come  in  for  a  lesson 
on  Roman  History  in  a  discussion  on  the  stomach.  But 
the  study  of  nature  is  connected  with  everything  else, 
though  without  appearing  to""be  so,  and  I  was  not  sorry 
to  give  you,  incidentally,  this  proof  of  the  unexpected 
light  which  it  throws,  as  we  go  along,  upon  a  thousand 
questions  which  appear  perfectly  foreign  to  it.  Look, 
for  example,  at  this  old  fable  cited  by  Menenius.  For 
the  two  thousand  years  and  upwards  that  it  has  been  in 

fUHIVBRSITTl 


68  THE   STOMACH. 

circulation,  troops  of  historians,  poets,  orators,  and 
writers  of  all  kinds,  have  passed  it  forward  from  one  to 
the  other,  without  having  troubled  themselves  to  investi- 
gate the  laws  of  nature  in  connection  with  the  stomach  ; 
therefore,  not  one,  that  I  am  aware  of,  has  observed  this 
small  error,  so  trifling  in  appearance,  so  important  in 
reality,  which  nevertheless  is  obvious  to  the  first  young 
naturalist  who  thinks  the  matter  over. 

But  enough  of  the  Komans.  Let  us  return  to  our 
master — the  head  cook,  if  you  choose  to  call  him  so. 

I  was  telling  you  just  now  that  he  managed  the  stoves, 
and  you  may  have  thought  that  I  was  merely  using  simi- 
les, as  I  am  apt  to  do.  But  not  so  :  it  is  quite  true  that 
he  cooks  ;  and  so  now  tell  me,  if  you  can,  whence  he 
gets  his  fire  to  cook  with,  or  rather,  to  speak  more  cor- 
rectly, who  gives  it  to  him  ? 

Now  you  are  quite  puzzled,  so  I  must  help  you  out. 

In  the  mansion  we  were  talking  about  some  time  ago, 
to  whom  would  any  one  who  wanted  to  light  a  fire,  apply 
for  wood  ? 

I  think  you  can  answer  this  yourself,  for  you  cannot 
have  forgotten  our  famous  steward,  who  gives  every- 
thing to  everybody.  But,  you  will  wonder,  I  dare  say, 
how  the  blood  can  carry  wood  in  his  pockets. 

Wood  ?  Ay,  and  real  wood  too,  as  we  shall  soon  see  : 
but  it  is  not  wood  we  are  talking  about  now.  The  blood 
has  something  more  to  the  purpose  than  wood  in  his 
pockets,  for  he  has  heat  ready  made.  So  when  the 
stomach  wishes  to  set  to  work,  it  appeals  to  the  blood, 
which  comes  running  from  all  parts  of  the  body,  and 
heats  it  so  effectually  that  everything  within  is  really 
and  actually  cooked.  This  is  why  one  feels  a  sort  of 
slight  shudder  down  the  back  when  the  stomach  has  a 
great  deal  to  do  at  once,  for  the  blood  being  called  for 


THE   STOMACH.  69 

in  a  hurry,  comes  rushing  along  in  great  gushes,  and 
carries  with  it  the  heat  from  the  other  parts  of  the  body. 

It  is  for  this  reason,  too,  that  it  is  so  dangerous  to 
bathe  when  the  stomach  is  at  work  cooking,  because  the 
cold  of  the  water  drives  suddenly  back  all  the  blood 
which  has  accumulated  around  the  little  saucepan,  arid 
this  causes  such  a  shock  in  the  body  that  people  often 
die  of  it. 

Do  not  ask  me,  to-day,  where  this  heat  of  the  blood 
comes  from ;  we  will  speak  of  that  hereafter.  But  I 
may  tell  you  at  once  that  our  dear  steward  is  not  a  bit 
cleverer  in  this  matter  than  other  people,  and  obtains 
his  heat,  like  the  humblest  mortal,  by  burning  his  wood. 
Do  not  puzzle  yourself  to  find  out  how.  Enough  that 
he  burns  it  as  we  do,  and  by  a  similar  process. 

Well,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  master  cook  has  his 
fire  at  command.  You  know  also,  already,  what  it  is  he 
has  to  get  cooked ;  namely,  the  pulpy  stew,  which  has 
begun  in  the  mouth  by  chewing,  and  which  it  is  his  busi- 
ness now  to  finish  perfectly.  Now  see  what  a  cook  does 
who  has  got  her  stew  over  the  fire.  She  turns  and  turns 
it  again  and  again,  and  shakes  the  saucepan  from  time 
to  time,  that  the  ingredients  may  be  more  thoroughly 
mixed  up  together ;  and  this  is  precisely  what  is  done 
by  the  stomach ;  for  all  the  time  that  the  cooking  is 
going  on,  he  swells  and  contracts  himself  alternately, 
after  the  fashion  of  those  rings  of  the  oesophagus  we 
were  talking  about,  tossing  and  tumbling  the  food  from 
one  side  to  another,  so  as  to  knead  it,  as  it  were. 

Again,  the  cook  adds  water  to  her  stew  from  time  to 
time  to  keep  it  moist ;  and  so  the  stomach  pours  con- 
stantly upon  his  stew  a  liquid,  which  contains  a  great 
deal  of  water,  and  which  flows  in  from  a  quantity  of 
little  holes,  sunk  in  his  delicate  coats. 


70  THE   STOMACH. 

What  more  ? 

The  cook  puts  in  a  little  salt :  and  this  the  stomach 
takes  care  not  to  forget  either,  for  he  is  a  cook  who  un- 
derstands his  business.  In  the  liquid  of  which  I  am 
speaking,  there  is,  if  not  exactly  salt  as  one  sees  it  at 
table,  at  all  events  the  most  active  part  of  salt,  that 
which  possesses  in  the  highest  degree  the  property  of 
reducing  everything  we  eat  to  a  paste  ;  and  this  is  the 
real  reason  why  we  find  all  food  so  insipid  which  has  not 
been  seasoned  with  salt.  As  salt  contains  a  principle 
essential  to  the  work  to  be  done  by  the  stomach,  some 
method  had  to  be  devised  to  induce  us  to  provide  him 
with  it,  and  this  method  the  porter  up  above  has  hit 
upon.  He  makes  a  face  if  we  offer  him  anything  with- 
out a  little  salt  on  it,  as  much  as  to  say — "  How  can 
you  expect  them  to  cook  you  properly  down  below,  my 
good  friend,  if  you  don't  bring  them  proper  materials  ?" 

Upon  which  hint  men  have  always  acted  from  the  be- 
ginning ;  and  as  far  as  we  can  trace  history  back,  we 
find  them  mixing  salt  with  their  food,  though  without 
knowing  the  real  reason  why.  It  is  the  same,  too,  with 
the  lower  animals.  They  know  nothing  of  the  matter 
either,  but  this  does  not  prevent  their  having  a  natural 
relish  for  salt,  as  any  one  will  tell  you  who  has  the 
charge  of  cattle ;  for  their  stomachs  require  for  their 
cooking  the  very  same  seasoning  as  our  own,  and  there- 
fore their  porter  above  has  received  the  same  orders. 

Salt  is  not  the  only  thing,  however,  that  exists  in  that 
liquid  in  the  stomach.  Learned  men,  after  making  mi- 
nute researches,  have  found  in  it  another  equally  power- 
ful material,  which  is  also  found  in  milk.  Therefore 
cheese,  which  contains  this  material  as  well  as  salt,  is 
quite  in  its  place  at  the  end  of  dinner.  It  furnishes  re- 
inforcements for  the  stomach  in  cooking,  and  this  is  why 


THE  STOMACH.  71 

you  so  often  hear  people  say  that  a  little  cheese  helps 
the  digestion. 

The  digestion  /  Yes,  that  is  the  word  I  ought  to  have 
begun  with.  It  is  the  real  name  of  all  this  cooking  ;  an 
operation  after  which  I  would  defy  you  to  recognise  the 
nice  little  cakes  you  have  eaten,  any  better  than  your* 
mamma  can  trace  her  pretty  rosy-cheeked  apples  in  the 
jelly  which  she  left  on  the  fire  two  hours  ago.  The 
stomach,  as  you  see,  is  very  busy  quite  as  long  a  time  as 
that,  and  if  we  have  to  be  very  careful  (as  I  pointed  out 
before)  not  to  disturb  him  too  suddenly  in  his  work  after 
dinner,  it  is  also  important  that  we  should  not,  while  at 
dinner,  give  him  more  work  to  do  than  he  is  capable  of 
doing.  Although  he  is  the  master,  he  is  but  a  puny  fel- 
low, as  I  have  already  pointed  out ;  nevertheless,  he 
works  conscientiously,  because  he  knows  that  the  life  of 
the  whole  body  depends  upon  his  exertions.  Some  peo- 
ple even  say  that  in  spite  of  his  leanness  he  strips  himself, 
at  each  digestion,  of  his  interior  skin,  which  he  sacrifices 
to  his  work,  and  the  fragments  of  which  tend  to  increase 
and  improve  the  stew  which  is  entrusted  to  his  care. 
Think  of  this,  my  dear,  whenever  a  greedy  fit  comes  over 
you,  and  recollect  that  such  a  disinterested  public  func- 
tionary deserves  some  consideration.  Besides,  there  is 
serious  danger,  quite  apart  from  any  question  of  injus- 
tice, in  overwhelming  him  with  work.  If  your  legs  are 
wearied  out,  you  have  it  in  your  power  to'  lie  in  bed.  If 
your  arm  is  in  pain,  you  can  keep  it  at  rest.  But  your 
stomach  is  like  those  poor  people  who  have  to  support 
their  families  by  the  labor  of  each  day.  He,  too,  labors 
for  others :  he  has  no  right  to  rest,  no  right  to  be  ill, 
therefore  ;  and  when  he  begins  to  fail,  woe  betide  you — 
you  will  have  enough  of  it. 

Children  who  have  learnt  nothing  may  laugh  at  all 


72  THE   STOMACH. 

this,  but  you,  my  dear,  are  beginning  to  know  something, 
and  "  science  constrains,"  i.e.  it  has  its  claims  and  re- 
quirements. It  requires  you,  to-day,  not  to  be  greedy, 
to-morrow,  something  else,  and  so  on,  continually,  until 
you  have  become  quite  reasonable  and  wise.  I  am  sorry 
ft)r  you  if  this  vexes  you,  but  it  was  your  own  wish  to 
learn,  and  science  constrains.  Indeed,  I  will  whisper  to 
you  in  confidence  that  this  is  the  best  excuse  people  who 
are  unwilling  to  learn  have  to  offer  for  refusing.  They 
do  not  know  what  learning  may  lead  to,  and  what  a  pity 
it  would  be  if  they  could  no  longer  be  greedy,  or  ill- 
natured,  or  selfish.  What  would  become  of  us  all  in  such 
a  case  ? 


LETTER  IX. 

THE  STOMACH — (continued). 

WE  made  a  very  long  story  of  the  stomach  last  time, 
my  dear  child  ;  and,  after  all,  I  see  that  there  was  one 
thing  I  forgot  to  tell  you — viz.,  what  it  is  like. 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  bagpiper,  I  wonder  ?  A  man 
who  carries  under  his  arm  a  kind  of  large  dark  brown 
bag,  which  he  fills  with  air  by  blowing  into  it,  and  out 
of  which  he  presently  forces  the  same  air  into  a  musical 
pipe  by  pressing  it  gently  with  his  elbow.  If  you  never 
saw  such  a  thing,  it  is  a  pity  ;  first,  because  the  bagpipe 
was  the  national  instrument  of  our  ancestors  the  Gauls, 
and  is  religiously  preserved  as  such  by  the  Scotch  High- 
landers and  the  peasants  of  Brittany — (two  remnants  of 
that  illustrious  race,  whose  history  I  recommend  to  your 
careful  perusal  some  day) ;  secondly,  and  it  is  this  fact 
which  has  the  greatest  interest  for  us  just  now,  because 
that  large  bag,  which  is  the  principal  part  of  the  instru- 
ment, gives  you  a  very  exact  idea  of  your  stomach  ;  for 
in  fact  it  really  and  truly  is  a  stomach  itself,  and  more- 
over, the  stomach  of  an  animal  whose  interior  formation 
resembles  yours  very,  very  much. 

And  who  do  you  suppose  is  this  audacious  animal, 
which  presumes  to  have  an  inside  so  like  that  of  a  pretty 
little  girl  ?  Really,  I  am  half  ashamed  to  name  him,  for 
fear  you  should  be  angry  with  me  for  doing  so.  It  is — 
it  is  the  pig  1  The  resemblance  is  not  exactly  a  flatter- 
4 


74  TH£   STOMACH. 

ing  one  to  you,  perhaps,  but  we  are  all  alike,  and  it 
would  be  worse  than  foolish  to  grumble  at  being  created 
as  we  are.  Moreover,  there  is  one  difference  ;  the  pig, 
who  thinks  of  nothing  but  eating,  has  a  very  much  larger 
stomach  than  we  have,  which  is  some  consolation,  at  any 
rate. 

Place  the  palm  of  your  right  hand  on  what  is  called 
the  pit  of  the  stomach,  turning  the  ends  of  the  fingers 
towards  the  heart ;  your  hand  will  nearly  cover  the 
space  usually  occupied  by  the  stomach,  and  you  may 
figure  it  to  yourself  as  a  rounded  and  elongated  bag, 
bigger  above  than  below,  making  a  very  decided  bend 
inside  as  it  descends  from  the  heart  downward  ;  some- 
thing like  one  of  those  long  French  pears,  called  "  Bon- 
chretiens,"  if  it  were  bent  in  the  middle,  and  the  big  end 
of  it  were  placed  next  the  heart.  As  for  the  exact  size 
of  the  bag,  there  is  no  telling  it,  for  it  depends  upon  cir- 
cumstances. It  is  a  very  convenient  bag  in  that  respect ; 
just  such  a  one  as  you  would  like  to  have  in  your  frock 
for  a  pocket ;  only  there  would  be  a  danger  of  your  be- 
ing tempted  to  put  too  many  things  into  it.  For  as  you 
fill  it,  it  expands,  and  enlarges  itself  like  an  indian-rub- 
ber  ball,  which,  though  only  the  size  of  an  egg  to  begin 
with,  becomes  as  big  as  your  head  if  you  blow  hard  into 
it.  Then,  as  it  gets  empty,  it  recovers  itself,  diminish- 
ing gradually  in  size  in  plait-like  contractions. 

When  people  remain  too  long  without  eating,  they 
have,  as  they  say,  twinges  in  the  stomach.  This  is  be- 
cause the  stomach,  becoming  by  degrees  quite  empty, 
and  contracting  more  and  more,  the  surrounding  parts 
which  were  sustained  by  it,  lose  their  support,  and  strain 
at  their  ligaments,  which  now  have  all  the  weight  to 
bear.  Careless  people,  who  do  not  think  of  such  things, 
are  reminded  by  the  twinging  pains  that  it  is  time  to 


THE   STOMACH.  75 

cat,  just  as  a  careless  servant  is  called  to  order  by  the 
bell  of  which  his  master  has  pulled  the  string. 

In  your  case,  my  dear  child,  such  warnings  are  soon 
attended  to,  and  you  have  not  always  even  to  wait  till 
they  come.  But  there  are  hundreds  of  miserable  beings 
who  are  warned  to  no  purpose,  who  cannot  obey  the 
master  when  he  calls  for  his  rations,  because  they  have 
nothing  to  give  him  ;  and  when  this  forced  disobedience 
lasts  too  long,  they  end  by  dying  of  it.  In  cases  like 
these,  when  human  beings  thus  cruelly  perish,  the  stom- 
ach is  found  to  be  contracted  till  it  is  scarcely  bigger 
than  one's  finger. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  man  once  died  suffocated  from 
excess  of  food,  after  one  of  those  great  public  dinners, 
which  last  four,  six,  or  more  hours — one  can  scarcely 
say  correctly  how  long — and  the  doctors. who  examined 
him  found  his  stomach  so  prodigiously  enlarged  that  it 
alone  occupied  more  than  one-half  of  his  inside. 

As  you  perceive,  therefore,  the  stomach  has,  properly 
speaking,  no  fixed  size.  Its  size  depends  upon  what 
there  is  in  it.  It  is  like  those  men  whose  manners  go  up 
and  down  with  their  fortunes  ;  who  seem  very  grand 
people  when  their  pockets  are  well  filled,  but  become 
very  small  ones  when  their  purses  are  empty.  There  is, 
nevertheless,  this  difference  between  them,  that  such  men 
are  fools,  because  they  are  men,  and  not  lags ;  whereas 
the  stomach  is  a  sensible  bag,  fulfilling  with  intelligence 
the  duties  of  its  character  as  a  bag.  It  is  very  fortunate 
for  us  that  it  is  ready  to  change  its  size,  according  to 
the  caprices  of  our  appetite  ;  and  dressmakers  would  do 
well  if  they  could  get  a  hint  from  it  how  to  improve  their 
style  of  pockets,  which  certainly"  cannot  have  cost  their 
inventors  any  very  great  effort  of  imagination ! 

The  way  in  which  this  extraordinary  pocket  empties 


76  THE   STOMACH. 

itself  is  not  less  curious  than  the  rest.^  As  long  as  di- 
gestion is  going  on,  the  stomach  is  firmly  closed  at  each 
end  ;  at  the  upper  one  by  the  last  ring  of  the  cesophagus, 
and  at  the  lower  by  another  ring  of  the  same  kind,  only 
stronger ;  the  watchful  guardian  of  the  passage  which 
leads  to  the  intestines.  This  ring  is  called  the  pylorus. 

For  once,  here  is  a  name  which  agrees  with  our  method 
of  describing  the  human  machine,  and  I  have  much  pleas- 
ure in  translating  it  to  you,  although  it  is  a  Greek  word. 
Pylorus  is  the  Greek  for  a  porter  ;  and  our  ring  is  in- 
deed a  porter  like  the  one  of  which  we  have  already  said 
so  much,  and  which  I  called  last  time  the  porter  up 
above,  in  anticipation  of  his  colleague  below. 

The  porter  up  above  presides  at  the  entrance ;  the 
one  below  at  the  exit,  and  both  for  the  same  purpose, 
namely,  to  taste.* 

It  may  well  astonish  you,  that  you  should  have  in 
your  inside  a  taster  who  is  not  accountable  to  you  ;  who 
experiences  sensations  of  which  you  know  nothing,  and 
cannot  even  form  an  idea.  Yet  thus  it  is.  The  pylorus 
actually  tastes  the  paste  which  is  in  the  stomach,  and  if 
it  is  not  to  his  taste,  that  is  to  say,  if  the  work  of  diges- 
tion has  not  sufficiently  transformed  it  for  use,  he  keeps 
the  door  relentlessly  closed. 

The  porter  up  above  has  a  thousand  different  tastes. 
He  makes  his  bow  to  meringues,  and  admits  wings  of 
chickens.  Fries,  roasts,  stews,  things  tender  or  crisp, 
sweet  and  salt,  oily,  greasy,  or  sour ;  among  all  kinds 

*  It  would  be  absurd  to  say  so  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the 
term ;  but  according  to  No.  1  of  Mr.  Mayo's  "  Classification  of  the 
impressions  produced  by  substances  taken  into  the  fauces,"  viz., 
"  Where  sensations  of  touch  alone  are  produced,  as  by  rock-crystal,  sap- 
phire, or  ice"  the  word  taste  may  be  applied  to  the  discriminating 
faculty  of  the  Pylorus. — TR. 


THE   STOMACH.  77 

he  has  friends  whom  he  welcomes  in  succession  ;  and  it 
is  well  for  us  that  he  does  so,  for  we  share  in  all  his 
pleasures. 

The  porter  below,  who  works  for  himself  alone, 
obscure  and  unknown  down  in  his  black  hole,  the  porter 
below,  I  say,  has  but  one  taste,  knows  but  one  friend — 
a  gray-looking  paste,  semi-liquid,  with  a  very  peculiar 
unsavoury  smell,  disagreeable  enough  to  any  one  but 
himself,  which  is  called  the  chyme,  I  scarcely  know  why  ; 
but  it  is  what  everything  one  eats  turns  into,  without  ex- 
ception, be  it  delicate  or  coarse  by  nature.  The  great 
lord's  truffle-stuffed  pullet  makes,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
the  same  chyme  as  the  charcoal-burner's  black  bread ;  and 
though  the  palate  of  the  former  may  be  better  treated 
than  that  of  the  latter,  the  pylori  can  enjoy  but  one  and 
the  selfsame  sauce.  Equality  is  soon  restored  in  this 
case,  therefore,  as  you  see. 

To  be  free  to  pass  through  then,  the  contents  of  the 
stomach  must  be  reduced  to  the  condition  of  chyme,  the 
only  substance  which  finds  favor  with  the  pylorus :  and 
as,  in  the  endless  varieties  of  food  which  go  to  form  our 
nutriment,  some  sorts  turn  into  chyme  much  more  quickly 
than  others,  it  follows,  that  by  the  aid  of  its  discriminat- 
ing tact  (which  is  not  easy  to  elude)  the  pylorus  allows 
some  to  pass,  while  it  turns  back  others,  until  all  in 
succession  are  converted  into  chyme.  For  example,  in 
the  case  of  a  mouthful  of  bread  and  meat  swallowed  at 
once,  the  bread  passes  away  on  its  travels  long  before 
the  meat  has  done  dancing  attendance  in  the  stomach, 
awaiting  that  transformation  without  which  the  pylorus 
will  never  allow  it  to  slip  through. 

This  ought  to  make  you  seriously  reflect  on  the  danger 
of  carelessly  swallowing  things  which,  by  their  nature, 
are  not  susceptible  of  being  converted  into  chyme,  par- 
ticularly if  they  are  too  large  to  hide  in  the  general 


78  THE  STOMACH. 

paste,  as  a  cherry-stone  will  sometimes  do,  so  mixed  up 
with  other  food  as  to  pass  unperceived  by  the  pylorus, 
over  whose  decisions  we  have  no  control,  remember.  It 
bangs  the  door  to,  be  assured,  in  the  very  face  of  any- 
thing obnoxious  without  hesitation,  and  the  poor  stomach, 
would  find  itself  condemned  to  retain  them  for  an  in- 
definite period,  unless  by  dint  of  prayers  and  supplica- 
tions they  should  contrive  to  soften  the  stern  guardian, 
who  may  at  last  get  accustomed  to  their  approach,  and, 
perhaps,  in  a  weak  moment,  allow  them  to  pass  as  con- 
traband goods  ;  like  a  custom-house  officer  on  a  foreign 
frontier  who  will  occasionally  shut  his  eyes  to  a  country 
friend's  packet  of  tobacco.  But  the  poor  stomach  has  had 
to  suffer  a  martyrdom  meantime,  while  Jihe  dispute  was 
pending,  and  before  the  intruder  has  been  winked  at  by 
the  porter. 

I  shall  remember  all  my  life  the  history  of  a  peach- 
stone,  which  was  related  to  me  in  1831.  I  was  at  the 
time  a  youngster  at  the  Stanislaus  College,  and  (aided 
perhaps  by  the  Revolution  of  July,  which  had  recently  oc- 
curred), it  was  just  then  discovered  to  be  a  proper  thing 
to  set  about  teaching  the  laws  of  nature  to  children. 
Consequently,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  schools, 
a  professor  of  natural  history  was  added  to  the  instruc- 
tors of  Latin  and  Greek.  I  leave  you  to  judge  how  we 
opened  our  ears  to  his  lessons.  When  we  arrived  in 
the  course  of  our  new  studies  at  the  pylorus,  of  which 
we  had  none  of  us  ever  heard  before,  our  professor,  in 
warning  us,  as  I  have  done  you,  of  the  dangers  of  im- 
prudent gluttony,  related,  as  an  instance,  the  case  of  a 
lady  who  had  inadvertently  swallowed  a  peach-stone. 
For  two  years  she  suffered  agonies  in  her  stomach  with- 
out any  cessation  or  relief.  The  luckless  peach-stone, 
repelled  by  the  walls  of  the  stomach,  which  its  very  touch 
irritated,  was  incessantly  thrown  against  the  entrance  of 


THE  STOMACH.  79 

the  pylorus,  but  in  vain.  As  to  turning  itself  into 
chyme,  such  a  thing  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  it  was  far 
too  hard  a  substance  for  that.  Round  and  round  it 
went,  causing  in  its  relentless  course  such  renewed  suf- 
fering to  the  poor  patient,  that  she  was  visibly  sinking 
from  day  to  day. 

The  doctors,  finding  all  their  treatment  of  no  avail, 
began  to  despair  of  her  life,  when  one  fine  day  she  was 
suddenly,  and  as  if  by  enchantment,  relieved  of  her  tor- 
mentor. The  peach-stone  had  bribed  the  porter,  with 
whom,  in  the  course  of  the  two  years,  it  had  scraped  up 
a  sort  of  friendship.  It  had  cleared  the  terrible  barrier, 
had  been  allowed  to  slip  out,  and  the  lady  was  saved  • 
but  it  was  only  just  in  time. 

I  do  not  know,  my  dear,  that  this  story,  which  is  cer- 
tainly well  calculated  to  cure  you  of  any  fancy  for  swal- 
lowing peach-stones,  will  make  as  much  impression  on  you 
as  it  did  on  me  five-and-twenty  years  ago.  The  idea  of 
telling  it  to  you  occurred  to  me  quite  by  chance.  It  has 
carried  me  back  to  the  time  when,  as  is  now  the  case 
with  you,  the  mysteries  which  lie  hidden  in  our  internal 
organization  were  beginning  to  be  revealed  to  my  mind ; 
and  you  will  one  day  know  with  what  delight  one  recalls 
the  remembrance  of  these  first  dawnings  of  the  intellect- 
ual life — that  delightful  infancy  of  the  growing  mind — 
more  rich  in  recollections,  and  more  interesting  a  thou- 
sand fold  than  the  infancy  of  the  body.  I  have  allowed 
myself  the  little  treat  of  this  episode,  and  if  I  have  had 
the  good  fortune  to  amuse  you  at  all  during  our  progress, 
you  must  not  cavil  at  this  piece  of  self-indulgence. 

And  now  we  have  done  just  what  the  peach-stone  did ; 
we,  too,  have  passed  the  barrier,  and  are  out  of  the 
stomach,  but  still  we  have  not  yet  come  to  the  end  of 
our  tale. 


LETTER  X. 

THE   INTESTINAL   CANAL. 

I  VENTURE  to  hope,  my  dear  child,  that  more  and  more 
light  is  dawning  upon  your  mind,  as  we  gradually  pro- 
ceed on  our  little  journey.  You  must  by  this  time  have 
some  idea  how  the  food,  which  has  been  masticated  and 
softened  in  the  mouth,  cooked,  kneaded,  and  decomposed 
in  the  stomach,  and  transformed  into  a  soft,  semi-trans- 
parent kind  of  paste,  will  soon  be  ready  to  mix  with  the 
blood,  in  order  to  repair  the  waste  that  ihe  life-stream 
is  continually  undergoing  in  its  ceaseless  course  through 
all  parts  of  the  body. 

You  have  perhaps  thought  it  a  sad  degradation  for  a 
truffle-stuffed  fowl  to  turn  to  chyme.  But  when  you  con- 
sider that  by  this  means  it  becomes  part  and  parcel  of  a 
human  body,  the  change  is  not  to  be  despised.  It  was 
necessary,  to  begin  with,  that  materials  destined  to  the 
honor  of  being  incorporated  into  our  frame,  should  break 
the  links  which  bound  them  to  the  condition  of  fowl  and 
vegetable,  and  thus  be  free  to  engage  in  new  relations  ; 
just  as  a  man  who  wishes  to  be  naturalized  in  a  new 
country  must  first  break  the  ties  which  hold  him  to  the 
old  one..  Those  articles  of  food  we  were  speaking  of 
lately,  which  are  so  stiff  and  ceremonious,  and  want  so 
much  coaxing  before  they  change  into  chyme,  which, 
moreover,  we  call  indigestible  because  they  tire  the 
stomach  so  much  more  than  the  rest,  are  merelv  those 

(80) 


THE  INTESTINAL   CANAL.  81 

whose  component  parts  being  held  together  by  more 
solid  ties  than  usual,  continue  obstinately  in  the  same 
state  as  at  first,  and  will  not  consent  to  that  dissolution 
which  is  the  first  condition  of  their  glorious  transforma- 
tion. 

Moreover,  the  transformation  which  has  been  described 
to  you  now,  you  will  henceforth  meet  with  everywhere ; 
wherever,  that  is  to  say,  and  as  far  as,  you  choose  to 
pursue  the  study  of  nature.  God  works  by  one  grand 
and  simple  rule  so  far  as  we  can  discover.  He  destroys 
to  reconstruct,  builds  up  what  is  to  be,  out  of  the  ruins 
of  what  has  been,  creates  life  by  death,  if  I  may  so  ex- 
press myself,  and  thus,  what  takes  place  in  our  stomachs 
on  a  small  scale  goes  on  on  a  large  one  in  the  universe. 

Social  communities,  like  everything  else,  are  subject 
to  this  universal  law,  and  it  is,  not  always  an  advantage 
to  them  when  they  refuse  to  be  digested  in  the  great 
stomach  of  the  age ! 

While  we  are  on  this  subject,  and  to  show  you  how 
wonderfully  this  little  history  of  eating,  told  in  this  fa- 
miliar style,  applies  right  and  left,  let  us  reflect  on  the 
causes  which  have  produced  a  great  and  mighty  nation 
in  one  country  (as  in  France),  while  in  another  (as  in 
Germany),  a  far  more  numerous  and  even  more  intellect- 
ual population  has  failed  to  rise  to  anything  like  the 
same  distinction.  The  explanation  is  not  difficult.  In 
the  one  case,  the  petty  tribes  among  which  the  land  was 
originally  divided  consented  to  mix,  and  dissolve,  and 
be  digested  as  it  were  together,  in  order  to  revive  again 
for  a  more  glorious  career  ;  while  in  the  other,  the  abo- 
riginal societies  have  adhered  stiffly  to  their  distinctive 
characters,  and  failing  to  submit  to  the  regenerating 
process,  cling  together  in  indigested  portions,  rather 
than  assimilate  into  one  great  whole. 
4* 


82  THE   INTESTINAL   CANAL. 

However,  we  must  return  to  the  pylorus  or  we  shall 
be  getting  into  a  difficulty !  What  I  am  now  going  to 
offer  you  though,  is  rather  hard  of  digestion,  but  it  will 
not  do  to  provide  sweet  pastry  only  for  your  brain  ;  it 
will  be  more  wholesome  for  it  to  have  something  a  little 
more  solid  to  bite  at  from  time  to  time. 

The  pylorus,  then,  as  has  been  shown,  makes  way  for 
all  sorts  of  aliments  when  they  have  been  converted  into 
chyme  ;  i.  e.,  when  they  have  lost  their  original  form  and 
individuality.  They  are  dead  to  their  first  life,  there- 
fore ;  now  the  question  is,  how  are  they  to  be  revived 
into  the  new  one  ?  * 

Behind  the  pylorus  extends  a  long  conduit  or  tube — 
so  long  as  to  be  sometimes  seven  times  the  length  of  the 
whole  body,  but  doubled  up  backwards  and  forwards  a 
number  of  times,  so  as  to  form  a  large  bundle,  which 
fills  the  whole  cavity  of  the  belly — or  as  we  also  call  it, 
the  abdomen.  This  bundle  or  packet  is  known  to  every- 
body as  the  intestines,  and  it  is  divided  into  two  portions  : 
the  small  intestine — that  is,  the  slenderer,  finer  portion 
which  begins  at  ihe' pylorus,  and  forms  all  the  doublings 
of  the  packet,  and  the  large  intestine,  which  is  shorter  and 
thicker  also,  as  its  name  implies,  and  keeps  to  some  ex- 
tent separate,  though  it  is  in  reality  only  a  continuation 
of  the  other.  This  starts  at  the  base  of  the  abdomen, 
near  the  right  side,  goes  up  in  a  straight  line  to  the 
height  of  the  stomach,  below  which  it  passes,  making  a 
large  bend  in  front  of  the  small  intestine  ;  after  which  it 
descends  on  the  left  side  to  the  lower  part  of  the  trunk, 
where  it  terminates. 

You  will  perhaps  inquire  how  the  chyme  continues  to 
make  its  way  through  all  these  manifold  twists  of  the 
intestines  ;  but  do  not  trouble  yourself ;  it  has  only  to 
let  itself  go.  That  vermicular  movement  which  we  no- 


THE   INTESTINAL   CANAL.  83 

ticed  in  the  oesophagus  and  in  the  stomach  is  found  here 
also.  It  reigns,  so  to  speak,  from  one  end  of  our  inter- 
nal eating-machine  to  the  other  ;  which  eating-machine, 
by  the  way,  we  will  now  call  by  its  proper  scientific 
name — the  intestinal  canal ;  and  it  is  by  that  movement 
the  food  is  carried  forward  from  the  first  moment  it 
leaves  the  mouth,  and  helped  through  all  its  journey  ings, 
till  it  reaches  the  termination  of  the  large  intestine. 

If  your  body  were  made  of  glass,  so  that  you  could 
look  through  it  to  watch  the  intestine  at  work,  it  would 
appear  to  you  like  an  enormous  worm  coiled  up  into  a 
bundle,  heaving  and  moving  with  all  its  rings  at  once. 
You  never  suspected  there  was  such  a  movement  within 
you ;  yet  it  has  been  going  on  there  continually  ever 
since  you  were  born,  and  will  not  cease  till  you  die. 
Your  internal  machinery  never  goes  to  sleep,  not  even 
when  you  are  sleeping  yourself.  It  is  a  workshop  in 
constant  operation,  providing  night  and  day  for  your 
necessities  ;  and  in  this  respect  the  inner  man  sets  a 
first-rate  example  to  the  outer  one !  You  will  recollect 
what  I  said  to  you  the  other  day  about  the  internal  re- 
public, and  the  provinces  which  are  under  your  sole  gov- 
ernment. It  would  be  very  disgraceful  for  the  kingdom 
to  be  doing  nothing  while  the  republic  is  working  so 
hard  ;  and  a  queen  who  understands  her  office  will  make 
it  a  point  of  honor  to  banish  idleness  from  her  household ; 
in  the  houses  of  her  neighbors  this  word  is  unknown. 

The  chyme  once  launched  into  this  moving  tube,  is  in 
no  danger  of  remaining  stationary  there  ;  the  fear  is,  of 
its  passing  on  too  quickly,  as  you  will  soon  see.  But 
this  danger  has  been  provided  against.  Along  the  whole 
course  of  its  journey,  though  chiefly  at  the  commence- 
ment, it  encounters  at  intervals  certain  elastic  flesl^y 
valves  which  interrupt  its  progress,  and  do  not  allow  it 


84  THE  INTESTINAL   CANAL. 

to  pass  till  it  has  accumulated  in  sufficient  force  to  push 
them  before  it,  and  so  escape.  In  consequence  ,f  which 
it  is  always  being  checked  in  its  advance  ;  and  during 
these  stoppages  a  most  important  work  goes  on  upon  it 
at  leisure. 

You  must  understand  first,  that  the  substances  of 
which  our  food  is  composed,  and  which  are  afterwards 
decomposed  in  the  stomach,  are  not  all  invited  to  enter 
the  blood.  Our  aliments  are  something  like  the  stones 
which  the  gold-seekers  of  California  reduce  to  powder 
in  order  to  extract  therefrom  the  hidden  particles  of 
gold  they  contain.  The  gold  of  our  food  is  that  portion 
of  it  which  the  blood  is  able  to  appropriate  to  his  own 
advantage  ;  the  rest  he  rejects  as  refuse.  And  this  ex- 
plains why  a  small  slice  of  meat  nourishes  you  more 
than  a  whole  plateful  of  salad.  Meat  is  a  stone  abso- 
lutely full  of  gold,  while  the  salad  has  only  a  few  veins 
of  it  here  and  there,  and  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
material  it  sends  to  the  intestines,  has,  in  consequence, 
to  be  thrown  away. 

Now  it  is  in  the  first  portion  of  the  small  intestine, 
the  part  known  by  the  Latin  name  duodenum,  which  sig- 
nifies twelve  (because  it  is  about  the  length  of  twelve 
finger-breadths),  that  the  division  takes  place  between 
the  parts  which  go  to  nourish  the  blood,  and  those  which 
are  useless  refuse.  It  is  an  important  operation  as  you 
may  suppose,  and  were  the  chyme  to  pass  rapidly  through 
the  small  intestine  the  gold  would  run  the  risk  of  being 
carried  off  with  the  refuse. 

After  the  delay  in  the  stomach,  the  food-substances 
make  another  halt  in  the  duodenum,  which,  being  very 
thin  and  slender,  would  have  great  difficulty  in  contain- 
ing them  at  the  time  of  their  grand  entry,  an  hour  or 
two  after  a  meal,  were  it  not  that  it  possesses  the 


THE  INTESTINAL   CANAL.  85 

property  of  expanding  itself  to  such  an  extent,  that  it 
swells  out  on  grand  occasions  to  the  usual  size  of  the 
stomach  itself,  so  that  it  has  sometimes  been  considered 
as  a  second  stomach.  And  no  doubt  the  operation  which 
takes  place  in  it  gives  it  a  claim  to  the  appellation,  for 
thereby  the  finishing  stroke  is  put  to  the  work  previously 
begun  in  the  stomach,  and  one  may  fairly  say  that,  but 
for  this  last  touch,  very  little  would  be  accomplished  at  all. 

Above  the  duodenum,  and  hid  behind  the  stomach,  is 
a  kind  of  sponge,  similar  in  nature  to  those  we  have  al- 
ready observed  in  the  mouth.  To  this  has  been  given 
the  somewhat  ridiculous  name  of  pancreas;  I  call  it 
ridiculous  because  it  is  derived  from  two  Greek  words 
which  signify  all  flesh  ;  whereas  the  pancreas,  which  is 
a  sponge  of  the  same  description  as  the  salivary  glands, 
presents  the  appearance  of  a  grayish  granulous  mass 
which  is  not  fleshy  at  all.  Whatever  be  its  name,  -how- 
ever, our  sponge  communicates  with  the  duodenum 
through  a  small  tube,  by  means  of  which  it  pours  into 
the  chyme,  as  it  accumulates,  a  copious  supply  of  a  fluid 
exactly  like  the  saliva  of  the  mouth. 

Just  by  the  place  where  the  tube  from  the  pancreas 
empties  itself  into  the  duodenum,  another  tube  arrives 
bringing  also  a  fluid,  but  of  a  different  sort.  This  last 
comes  from  the  liver,  where  there  is  a  manufactory  of 
Me — an  unpleasant  yellowish-green  liquid,  the  name  of 
which  you  have  no  doubt  heard  before,  and  which  plays 
a  very  important  part  in  the  transformation  of  the  ali- 
ments. 

These  new  agents,  the  bile  and  the  liver,  are  far  too 
important  to  be  passed  over  in  a  few  words  ;  I  reserve 
them,  therefore,  for  my  next  letter.  Meantime,  not  to 
leave  you  longer  in  suspense,  I  may  say  that  the  separa- 
tion between  the  gold  and  the  refuse  in  the  chyme  takes 


86  THE  INTESTINAL  CANAL. 

place  as  soon  as  the  latter  lias  received  the  two  liquids 
furnished  by  the  liver  and  the  .pancreas.  If  you  ask  in 
what  manner  the  division  is  accomplished,  I  confess,  to 
my  shame,  that  I  am  not  able  to  explain  it !  What  takes 
place  there  is  a  chemical  process,  and  hereafter  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  explain  the  meaning  of  that  phrase. 
But  the  Great  Chemist  has  not  in  this  instance  seen  fit 
to  divulge  to  man  the  secret  of  the  work. 

Indeed,  you  must  prepare  yourself  beforehand,  .my 
dear  child,  to  meet  with  many  other  mysteries  besides 
this,  if  we  pursue  to  the  end  our  study  of  this  flesh  and 
bone  which  constitute  the  body  of  man.  And  here  I 
recall  what  Camille  Desmoulins  is  reported  to  have  said 
about  St.  Just,  viz.,  that  he  carried  his  head  as  high  as 
if  it  were  a  consecrated  Host.*  You  will  read  about 


*  The  young  Protestant  reader  who  has  never  lived  in  a  Catholic 
country,  will  perhaps  need  to  be  told,  that  what  is  here  called  Con- 
secrated Host,  is  the  sacramental  wafer,  or  communion  bread  of  the 
church.  In  French  called  Twstie,  in  Italian,  ostia. 

In  all  their  religious  processions,  which  are  very  frequent,  the 
host  is  carried  by  the  priest  highest  in  authority,  in  a  glass  box 
placed  on  a  staff  about  four  feet  long,  which  he  holds  before  him 
and  so  far  elevated  that  he  has  to  look  up  to  it.  Over  his  head  a 
richly  embroidered  canopy  of  satin  is  always  carried  by  several 
men  ;  and  while  these  are  passing,  all  good  Catholics  uncover  the 
head  and  ben<j#2re  knee,  wherever  they  may  be. 

It  is  the  custom  also  for  the  priest  to  be  called  to  administer  the 
sacrament  to  any  one  about  to  die,  on  which  occasion  he  always 
walks  under  this  canopy,  dressed  in  his  priestly  robes,  carrying  the 
host  and  preceded  by  some  boys,  ringing  a  bell,  when  the  same 
ceremony  is  observed.  In  passing  a  regiment  or  company  of  sol- 
diers, the  column  is  halted,  wheeled  into  line,  and  with  arms  pre- 
sented, the  whole  line,  officers  and  men,  kneel  before  it,  and  the 
priest  usually  turns  and  offers  a  benediction.  When  he  goes  in  the 
evening  to  the  house  of  the  dying,  it  is  customary  for  the  people  to 
go  out  upon  the  balconies  with  lighted  lamps  and  kneel  while  the 
host  is  being  carried  by. 


THE   INTESTINAL   CANAL.  87 

these  two  men  by-and-by  in  history.  Meantime  I  will 
not  bid  you  do  exactly  the  same  as  St.  Just,  because  you 
would  be  laughed  at ;  but  in  one  point  of  view  he  was 
not  altogether  wrong.  The  human  body  is,  in  very 
truth,  a  temple  in  which  the  Deity  may  be  said  to  reside, 
not  inactively,  not  veiling  his  presence,  but  living  and 
moving  unceasingly,  watching  on  our  behalf  over  the 
mysterious  accomplishment  of  the  everlasting  laws  which 
equally  guide  the  chyme  in  its  workings  through  our 
frames,  and  direct  the  sun  in  its  course  through  the 
heavens.  We  mortals  eat,  but  it  is  God  who  brings 
nourishment  out  of  our  food. 


LETTER  XI. 

THE   LIVER. 

I  FEAE  you  will  be  getting  a  little  weary,  my  dear,  of 
dwelling  so  long  on  this  intestinal  tube,  where  things 
which  looked  so  well  on  one's  plate  become  so  trans- 
formed that  they  cannot  be  recognized,  and  where  there 
is  nothing  to  talk  about  but  chyme,  and  bile,  and  the 
pancreas,  and  all  sorts  of  things  neither  pleasant  to  the 
eye  nor  agreeable  to  the  ear. 

But  what  is  to  be  done  ?  It  is  always  the  same  story 
with  useful  things.  The  people  by  whose  labor  you 
live  in  this  world,  are  by  no  means  the  handsomest  to 
look  at,  and  so  it  is  in  the  little  world  we  carry  about 
in  our  bodies. 

Never  mind !  Keep  up  your  heart.  We  are  getting 
to  the  end.  We  shall  very  soon  be  following  the  nour- 
ishing portion  of  our  food,  on  its  journey  to  the  blood, 
and  you  will  find  yourself  in  new  scenes. 

First,  though,  let  us  say  a  few  words  about  the  liver — 
the  bile-manufacturer  ;  and  to  begin  with,  I  will  describe 
the  place  he  occupies  in  our  interior. 

The  interior  of  the  human  body  is  divided  into  two 
large  compartments,  placed  one  above  the  other ;  the 
chest  and  the  abdomen.  These  are  two  distinct  apart- 
ments, each  containing  its  own  particular  class  of  ten- 
ants :  the  upper  one  being  occupied  by  the  heart  and 
the  lungs  (the  respective  offices  of  which  I  will  presently 
(88) 


THE   LITER.  89 

explain  to  you) ;  while,  in  the  lower  are  the  stomach, 
the  intestines,  and  all  the  other  machinery  which  assists 
in  the  process  of  digestion.  These  two  stories  of  apart- 
ments are  separated  as  those  of  our  houses  are,  by  a 
floor  placed  just  above  the  pit  of  the  stomach.  This 
floor  is  a  large  thin,  flat  muscle,  stretched  like  canvas, 
right  across  the  body  ;  and  it  is  called  the  diaphragm — 
another  hard  word !  Never  mind  ;  but  do  your  best  to 
recollect  it,  for  we  shall  have  great  need  of  it  when  we 
come  to  the  lungs.  If  you  had  been  born  in  Greece, 
you  would  have  no  difficulty  with  the  word,  for  it  is 
Greek  for  separation.  It  means,  in  fact,  a  separating 
partition,  or,  as  I  called  it  just  now,  a  floor.  All  this  is 
preparatory  to  telling  you  that  the  liver  is  hooked  to 
the  diaphragm  in  the  abdomen.  It  is  a  very  large  mass 
and  fills  up,  by  itself  alone,  all  the  right  side  of  the 
lower  compartment,  from  the  top  downwards,  to  where 
the  bones  end  which  protect  the  abdomen  on  each  side, 
and  which  are  called  the  short  ribs.  Place  your  hand 
there,  and  you  will  find  them  without  difficulty. 

Large  as  the  liver  is,  it  hangs  suspended  to  a  mere 
point  of  the  diaphragm,  and  shakes  about  with  even  the 
slightest  movement  of  the  body.  It  is  partly  on  this 
account  that  many  people  do  not  like  to  sleep  lying  on 
the  left  side,  especially  after  a  good  dinner,  because  in 
this  position  the  liver  weighs  upon  and  oppresses  the 
stomach,  like  a  stout  gentleman  asleep  in  a  coach  who 
falls  upon  and  crushes  his  companion  at  every  jolt  of 
the  vehicle.  The  liver  within  you  produces,  then,  the 
same  effect  that  a  cat,  lying  on  the  pit  of  your  stomach 
would  do,  and  the  result  is  that  you  have  the  nightmare. 

The  liver  is  of  a  deep-red  color.  It  is  an  accumula- 
tion of  excessively  minute  atoms,  which,  when  united, 
form  a  somewhat  compact  mass,  and  within  each  of 


THE   LIVEE. 

which  there  is  a  little  cell,  invisible  to  the  naked  eye, 
where  an  operation  of  the  highest  importance  to  our 
existence  is  mysteriously  carried  on.  It  appears  a  very 
simple  one,  it  is  true,  yet  hitherto  it  has  baffled  all  at- 
tempts at  explanation.  Listen,  however  ;  the  subject  is 
well  worthy  your  careful  attention,  whether  it  can  be 
explained  or  not,  and  we  must  look  back  to  take  it  up 
from  the  beginning. 

I  told  you  about  the  thousand  workmen  constantly 
busied  in  every  part  of  our  bodies,  who  call  on  the  blood 
without  ceasing  for  "  more,  more."  You  will  remember 
further  that  it  is  to  enable  the  blood  to  supply  these 
constant  demands,  that  we  require  food. 

This  being  understood,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  why 
we  grow ;  the  difficulty  is,  rather,  to  explain  why  we  do 
not  continue  to  grow. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  quantity  of  food  you  have 
eaten  during  the  last  year.  Picture  to  yourself  all  the 
bread,  meat,  vegetables,  fruits,  cakes,  &c.,  piled  upon  a 
table.  Put  a  whole  year's  milk  into  a  large  earthen- 
ware pan,  all  the  sweetmeats  into  a  large  jar,  all  the 
soup  into  a  great  tureen,  and  see  what  a  huge  heap  you 
will  have  collected  together.  Then  try  to  recollect  how 
much  you  have  increased  in  size  with  all  this  nourish- 
ment, which  has  entered  your  body.  But  reckoning  in 
this  way — even  supposing  the  little  workmen  had  used 
only  a  half  or  even  a  third  of  the  materials  in  question, 
and  rejected  the  rest  as  refuse — you  would  have  to  stoop 
in  order  to  get  in  at  the  door  ;  and  as  for  your  papa, 
whose  heap  must  have  been  bigger  than  yours,  his  case 
would  be  desperate  indeed  ;  and  yet  he  has  not  grown 
at  all ! 

This  is  very  curious,  and  I  dare  say  you  have  never 
thought  about  it  before. 


THE   LIVER.  91 

Do  you  know  the  story  of  a  certain  lady  called  Pene- 
lope, who  was  the  wife  of  Ulysses,  a  very  celebrated 
king  of  whom  the  world  has  talked  for  the  last  3000 
years — thanks  to  a  poet  called  Homer,  who  did  him  the 
honor  of  making  him  his  hero  !  The  husband  of  Pene- 
lope had  left  her  for  a  long  time  to  go  to  the  wars,  and 
as  he  did  not  return,  people  tried  to  persuade  her  to 
marry  again.  For  peace  and  quiet's  sake,  she  promised 
to  do  so  when  she  should  have  finished  a  piece  of  cloth 
she  was  weaving,  at  which  she  worked  all  day  long. 
They  thought  to  get  hold  of  her  very  soon,  but  her  im- 
portunate lovers  were  disappointed  ;  for  the  faithful 
wife,  determined  to  await  the- return  of  her  husband, 
unwove  every  night  the  portion  she  had  woven  during 
the  day ;  and  I  leave  you  to  judge  what  progress  the 
web  made  in  the  course  of  a  year  1 

Now,  every  part  of  pur  bodies  is  a  kind  of  Penelope's 
web,  with  this  difference — that  here  the  web  unravels  at 
one  end  as  fast  as  the  work  progresses  at  the  other.  As 
the  little  masons  put  new  bricks  to  the  house  on  one 
side,  the  old  ones  crumble  away  on  another — in  this 
manner  the  work  might  go  on  forever  without  the  house 
becoming  bigger  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  house  is 
always  being  rebuilt.  People  who  are  fond  of  building, 
as  some  are,  would  quite  enjoy  having  such  a  mansion  as 
this  on  hand ! 

At  your  early  age,  my  love,  fewer  bricks  drop  out 
than  are  added,  and  this  is  why  you  grow  from  year  to 
year.  At  your  papa's  age,  just  the  same  number  perish 
and  are  replaced  ;  and  therefore  he  continues  the  same 
size,  although  in  the  course  of  the  year  he  swallows 
three  times  his  own  weight  of  food.  But  when  I  say 
this,  do  not  suppose  it  is  an  offensive  remark,  or  that  I 
think  him  either  too  little  a  man,  or  too  great  an  eater ; 


92  THE   LIVER. 

seeing  that  there  are  365  days  in  the  year,  and  that  a 
quart  of  water  weighs  two  pounds  :  I  need  not  say 
more! 

But  the  next  question  is,  what  becomes  of  all  the  refuse 
which  this  perpetual  destruction  produces  ? 

What  becomes  of  it  ?  Have  you  forgotten  our  stew- 
ard who  looks  after  everything  ?  He  is  a  more  active 
fellow  than  I  have  represented  him !  To  the  office  of 
purveyor-general  he  adds  that  of  universal  scavenger. 
But  in  the  latter  department  he  obtains  help.  Wherever 
he  passes  along,  troops  of  little  scavengers  press  forward, 
like  himself  always  busy  ;  and  while  he  holds  out  a  new 
brick  to  the  mason  as  he  hurries  by,  the  little  scavenger 
slips  out  the  old  one  and  conveys  it  away.  The  history 
of  these  scavengers  is  a  very  curious  one,  and  we  shall 
have  to  speak  about  it  a  little  further  on.  They  are 
minute  pipes,  i.  e.  ducts,  spread  all  over  the  body,  which 
they  envelope  as  if  with  fine  net  work.  They  all  com- 
municate together,  and  end  by  emptying  the  whole  of 
their  contents  into  one  large  canal,  which,  in  its  turn, 
empties  itself  into  the  great  stream  of  the  blood.  Imag- 
ine all  the  drains  of  a  great  town  flowing  into  one  large 
one,  which  should  empty  itself  into  the  river  on  which 
the  town  was  built,  and  you  will  have  a  fair  idea  of  the 
whole  transaction.  What  the  river  would  in  such  a  case 
be  to  the  town,  the  blood  is  to  the  body — the  universal 
scavenger,  as  I  said  before.  But  you  will  ask  further, 
What  does  the  blood  do  with  all  this  ? — a  question  which 
brings  us  back  once  more  to  the  liver. 

You  must  have  seen,  just  now,  that  the  pockets  of  our 
dear  steward  would  be  rapidly  overloaded,  were  he  to 
keep  constantly  filling  them  with  the  old  worn-out  ma- 
terials which  the  builders  rejected,  unless  he  had  some 
means  of  emptying  them  as  he  went  along.  Accordingly, 


THE  LIVER.  93 

a  wise  Providence  has  furnished  the  body,  on  all  sides, 
with  clusters  of  small  chambers  or  cells,  in  which  the 
blood  deposits,  as  he  goes  by,  all  the  refuse  he  has  picked 
up,  and  which  makes  its  exit  from  the  body  sometimes  in 
one  way,  sometimes  in  another.  Now,  the  cells  of  the 
liver  are  among  these  refuse-chambers.  One  may  even 
consider  them  as  some  of  the  most  important  ones. 
When  the  blood  has  run  its  course  through  the  lower 
compartment,  I  mean  the  abdomen,  it  collects  from  all 
directions  and  rushes  into  a  large  canal  called  the  portal 
vein,  which  conveys  it  to  the  liver.  As  soon  as  this  canal 
has  entered  the  liver,  it  divides  and  subdivides  itself  in 
every  direction,  like  the  limbs  and  branches  of  a  tree 
diverging  from  the  trunk ;  and  very  soon  the  blood  finds 
itself  disseminating  through  an  infinity  of  small  canals 
or  pipes,  whose  ultimate  extremities,  a  thousand  times 
finer  than  the  finest  hairs  of  your  head,  communicate 
with  the  tiny  cells  of  the  liver.  There,  each  of  the  im- 
perceptible little  drops,  thus  carried  into  these  imper- 
ceptibly minute  cell-chambers,  rids  itself — but  no  one 
knows  how — of  a  part  of  the  sweepings  it  has  carried 
along  with  it.  Which  done,  the  little  drops  thread  their 
way  back  through  other  canals  as  fine  as  the  first,  and 
which  go  on  uniting  more  and  more  to  each  other,  like 
the  branches  of  a  tree  on  their  way  to  the  trunk — form- 
ing at  last  one  large  canal,  through  which  the  blood 
escapes  from  the  liver,  once  more  relieved  from  its 
weight  of  rubbish,  and  ready  to  recommence  its  work. 

You  are  going  to  ask  me,  "  What  is  all  this  to  me — 
this  history  of  the  blood  and  its  sweepings  ?  It  was  the 
bile  you  undertook  to  tell  me  about,  that  liquid  you 
spoke  of  as  so  necessary  for  the  transformation  of  the 
food :  we  were  to  get  out  of  the  intestinal  tubes  by  the 
help  of  the  bile,  you  promised  me." 


94  THE   LIVER. 

Well,  my  little  impatient  minx,  it  is  the  history  of  the 
bile  that  I  have  been  relating  to  you,  and  what  is  most 
remarkable  about  it  is  this.  You  have  perhaps  heard 
of  those  wholesale  ragpickers,  who  make  large  fortunes 
by  collecting  out  of  the  mud  and  dirt  of  the  streets,  the 
many  valuable  things  which  have  been  dropped  there  ? 
Well,  the  liver  is  the  master-ragpicker  of  the  body.  He 
fabricates,  out  of  the  refuse  of  the  blood,  that  bile  which 
is  so  valuable  in  the  economy  of  the  human  frame.  This 
bile  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  deposit  left  by  the 
little  drops  of  blood  in  the  innumerable  minute  liver-cells. 
See  what  an  ingenious  arrangement,  and  in  what  a  simple 
way  two  objects  are  effected  by  one  operation ! 

Now  you  have  learnt  the  genealogy  of  the  bile,  and 
the  double  office  of  the  liver,  which  benefits  the  blood 
by  what  it  takes  from  it,  benefits  the  chyme  by  what  it 
gives  it,  and  is  an  economist  at  the  same  time — since  it 
only  gives  back  what  it  has  received.  This  was  what  I 
particularly  wished  to  explain  to  you  :  the  rest  you  will 
easily  learn. 

The  bile  does  not  make  a  long  stay  in  the  little  cells, 
it  also  escapes,  by  canals  similar  to  those  which  carry 
off  the  blood,  after  its  purification  ;  and  which  in  a  simi- 
lar way  unite  by  degrees  together,  until  at  length  they 
terminate  in  a  single  canal,  communicating  with  a  little 
bag  placed  close  against  the  liver,  where  the  bile  ac- 
cumulates between  the  periods  of  digestion — so  forming 
a  stock  on  hand,  ready  to  pour  at  once  into  the  duodenum 
when  the  latter  calls  for  its  assistance.  The  next  time 
the  cook  cleans  out  a  fowl,  ask  her  to  show  you  the  lit- 
tle greenish  bladder  which  she  calls  the  gall  and  which 
she  takes  such  care  not  to  burst,  because  it  contains  a 
bitter  liquid  which,  if  spilt  upon  it,  would  quite  ruin  the 
flavor  of  the  fowl.  Such,  precisely,  is  the  bag  which 


THE   LIVER.  95 

holds  the  bile.  Moreover,  it  is  close  by  the  liver  of  the 
fowl  that  you  will  find  it  placed  :  and  you  can  convince 
yourself  in  a  moment  by  it,  that  the  little  provision  I  tell 
you  of  is  always  stored  away  therein. 

We  have  also  within  us  a  multitude  of  minute  electric 
telegraphs,  which  transmit  intelligence  of  all  that  occurs 
from  one  part  of  the  body  to  another,  in  a  more  wonder- 
ful manner  even  than  the  telegraphs  of  man's  making  ; 
later  we  shall  see  how  they  work.  By  their  means  the 
little  bag  by  the  liver  is  made  aware  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye  of  the  entrance  of  the  chyme  into  the  duode- 
num, and  forthwith  the  bile  returns  for  some  distance 
by  the  canal  which  brought  it,  and  then  branches  off  into 
a  larger  one  which  opens  into  the  duodenum. 

The  liver,  on  getting  this  intelligence,  sets  to  work 
more  diligently  than  ever,  and  the  bile  flows  in  streams 
into  the  duodenum,  where  it  mixes  as  it  arrives  with  the 
current  which  comes  from  fas  pancreas.  Thus  combined, 
the  two  liquids  flow  over  the  chyme,  which  they  saturate 
on  all  sides  ;  and  here,  as  I  have  said,  the  work  of  the 
intestinal  canal  ends.  What  is  serviceable  for  the  blood 
is  separated  from  the  useless  refuse,  and  nothing  remains 
but  to  get  it  out  of  the  intestines.  It  is  true  that  in 
their  character  of  tubes  these  are  closed  on  all  sides. 
But  do  not  trouble  yourself :  a  means  of  escape  is  pre- 
pared. 

Before  we  part,  however,  I  must  apologize  for  some- 
thing. I  have  not  described  to  you  what  the  bile  con- 
sists of,  or  what  kind  of  refuse  the  blood  leaves  in  the 
liver  ;  nevertheless,  as  you  take  an  interest  in  this  much- 
neglected  book  of  nature,  you  ought  to  know  these 
things. 

It  is,  however,  very  difficult  to  lead  you  by  the  hand 
through  so  many  wonders,  where  the  secrets  of  nature 


96  THE   LIVER. 

are  all  in  operation  at  once,  and  to  explain  each  as  soon 
as  we  meet  with  it.  They  combine,  and  progress  to- 
gether like  the  waves  of  the  sea,  where  one  breath  suf- 
fices to  agitate  the  whole  mass. 

When  we  have  talked  about  the  lungs,  we  will  have 
another  word  to  say  about  the  liver. 


LETTER  XII. 

THE   CHYLE. 

TO-DAY  we  have  to  begin  by  making  acquaintance 
with  a  new  term.  I  would  willingly  have  spared  you 
this,  if  I  could,  for  the  word  is  neither  a  pretty,  nor  a 
well-chosen  one,  but  we  cannot  get  on  without  it. 

You  are  awart  now  that  the  learned,  unknown  spon- 
sors, who  gave  names  to  the  different  parts  of  the  body, 
bestowed  the  odd-enough  one  of  chyme  on  that  pasty 
substance  which  passes  out  of  the  stomach  when  the 
cooking  is  over.  We  have  sMd  quite  enough  about  it, 
and  you  know  enough  of  it  I  am  sure.  Well !  the  people 
seem  to  have  had  quite  a  fancy  for  the  word  chyme,  for 
they  adopted  it  again,  with  only  a  very  slight  alteration, 
when  they  wanted  to  specify  separately  the  quintessence 
of  the  chyme  (the  useful  part  that  is),  which  has  to  unite 
with  the  blood,  and  which  we  have  been  speaking  of  as 
the  gold  of  the  aliments — this  then  they  called  chyle.  I 
give  you  the  name  as  I  received  it,  but  have  no  responsi- 
bility in  the  matter. 

In  concluding  the  last  chapter  I  said  we  were  sure  to 
find  there  was  a  plan  for  extracting  the  best  part  of  the 
chyme,  viz.  the  chyle,  from  the  intestinal  canal  ;  and  a 
very  simple  one  it  is.  A  complete  regiment  of  those  little 
scavengers  lately  described,  are  drawn  up  in  battle- 
array  along  the  whole  length  of  the  small  intestine,  but 
5  (97) 


98  THE   CHYLE. 

especially  round  about  the  duodenum.  There,  a  thousand 
minute  pipes  pierce  in  all  directions  through  the  coat  of 
the  intestine,  and  suck,  like  so  many  constantly  open 
mouths,  the  drops  of  chyle  as  fast  as  they  are  formed. 
They  are  called  chyliferous  vessels  or  chyle-bearers,  just  as 
we  might  call  hot-air  stoves  caloriferous  or  heat-bearers — 
from  the  Latin  word/ero,  which  means  to  carry  or  bear. 
I  mentioned  before  that  there  were,  within  the  intestine, 
certain  elastic  valves  which  obstruct  the  progress  of  the 
chyme,  and  oblige  it  to  be  constantly  stopping.  There 
are  in  fact  so  many  of  these,  and  the  skin  which  lines  the 
intestinal  canal  is  so  folded  and  plaited,  that  if  it  were 
stretched  out  at  full  length  on  a-  big  table,  it  would  cover 
at  least  as  large  a  surface  as  that  other  skin,  with  which 
you  are  so  well  acquainted,  which  entfh-ely  clothes  the 
body  outside. 

Now,  the  chyliferous  vessels  we  have  been  speaking  of 
insinuate  themselves  into  all  the  plaits  and  folds  alluded 
to,  and  thus  they  reach  ato  last  the  very  centre  of  the 
chymous  paste,  and  not  a  single  drop  of  chyle  can  escape 
them.  They  do  their  work  so  well,  that  the  separation 
is  effected  long  before  the  paste  reaches  the  large  intes- 
tine ;  and  when  that  has  forced  its  way  through  the  door 
which  guards  the  entrance,  and  which  prevents  its  ever 
returning  again,  the  chyle  is  already  far  off  on  its  mission. 
It  has  threaded  its  way  along  the  little  pipes,  and,  al- 
ways creeping  nearer  and  nearer,  is  on  the  high-road  to 
the  heart,  where  it  is  anxiously  expected. 

And  what  becomes  of  the  rest  ?  There  is  nothing  fur- 
ther to  be  said  about  it,  but  that  it  shares  the  fple^  of 
everything  else  which,  having  answered  its  purpose  in  its 
place,  is  no  longer  wanted  and  must  be  got  rid  of.  Thus 
in  works  where  iron-stone  smelting  is  carried  on,  the 
refuse  that  remains  after  the  ore  is  extracted,  though 


THE   CHYLE.  99 

available  for  road-making  or  other  purposes,  is  thrown 
out  of  the  manufactory  as  a  useless  incumbrance  there. 

Our  history  requires  us  to  follow  the  fate  of  that 
golden  aliment  the  chyle,  which  is  now  in  a  condition  to 
support  the  life  of  the  body,  and  every  drop  of  which 
will  turn  into  blood — the  blood  which  beats  at  our  hearts, 
nourishes  our  limbs,  and  sets  at  work  the  fibres  of  our 
brain. 

I  ought  to  tell  you  first  that  the  chyle,  when  it  leaves 
the  intestine,  is  very  like  milk.  It  is  a  white,  rather 
fatty  juice,  having  the  appearance,  when  you  look  closely 
at  it,  of  a  kind  of  whey,  in  which  a  crowd  of  globules,  or 
little  balls  if  you  prefer  it,  infinitesimally  small,  are 
swimming  about.  Some  people,  whose  curiosity  nothing 
can  check,  have  put  the  tips  of  their  tongue  to  it ;  so  I 
am  able  to  tell  you,  if  you  care  for  the  information,  that 
it  has  rather  a  saltish  taste. 

At  this  point  it  is  what  may  be  called  new-born  blood, 
and  to  carry  on  the  metaphor,  blood  whose  education 
has  yet  to  be  completed.  All  the  elements  of  blood  are 
there  already,  but  in  confusion  and  intermingled,  so  that 
they  cannot  yet  be  recognised.  A  wonderful  fact,  and 
one  of  which  I  have  no  explanation  to  offer  you,  because 
among  the  many  mysteries  which  are  silently  going  on 
within  us  is  this,  that  the  education  of  the  new-born  blood 
begins  entirely  of  itself  in  the  vessels  which  are  carrying 
it  along.  During  their  very  journey,  the  confused  ele- 
ments are  setting  themselves  in  order  and  forming  into 
groups.  In  short  the  chyle,  when  it  comes  out  of  the 
chyliferous  vessels,  is  already  much  more  like  blood 
thanvKien  it  entered  them,  and  yet  one  cannot  account 
for  the  change.  It  is  changed,  however  ;  its  whiteness 
has  already  assumed  a  rosy  tinge,  and  if  it  is  exposed  to 
the  air  it  may  be  seen  turning  slightly  red,  as  if  to 


100  THE   CHYLE. 

give  notice  to  the  observer  of  what  it  is  about  to  be- 
come. 

You  know  that  all  our  scavengers  uniting  together 
deposit  their  sweepings  in  one  large  canal,  which  is 
called  the  thoracic  duct.  The  chyle  scavengers  arrive 
there  just  like  the  rest,  and  there  our  poor  friend  finds 
himself  confounded  for  a  moment  with  all  the  dross  of 
the  body,  as  sometimes  happens  to  men  who  devote 
themselves  to  the  public  good.  But  the  crisis  passes  in 
an  instant.  A  little  further  off,  the  thoracic  duct  pours 
its  whole  contents  together  into  a  large  vein  situated 
close  to  the  heart,  and  the  blood  has  no  difficulty  in 
recognising  and  appropriating  what  belongs  to  him. 

Here,  my  dear  little  scholar,  we  conclude  the  first 
part  of  our  story.  To  eat  is  to  nourish  oneself;  that  is, 
to  furnish  all  parts  of  the  body  with  the  substances 
necessary  to  them  for  the  proper  performance  of  their 
functions,  The  mouth  receives  these  substances  in  their 
crude  condition,  the  intestinal  canal  prepares  them  for 
use,  and  the  blood  distributes  them. 

After  the  history  of  the  preparation,  comes  naturally 
that  of  the  distribution. 

The  first  is  called  the  DIGESTION.  It  is  the  history 
of  the  Chyle,  which  begins  between  the  thumb  and  fore- 
finger while  as  yet  invisible,  hid  in  the  thousand  prisons 
of  our  different  sorts  of  food,  and  ends  in  the  thoracic 
duct,  when,  disengaged  from  all  previous  bonds,  purified 
and  refined  by  the  ordeals  of  its  intestinal  life,  it  leaps 
into  the  blood,  carrying  with  it  a  renewal  of  life  and 
power. 

The  second  history  is  that  of  the  CIRCULATION.  It  is 
the  history  of  the  Blood,  that  indefatigable  traveler,  who 
is  constantly  circulating  or  describing  a  circle  (the  Latins 


THE   CHYLE.  101 

called  it  circulus) through  the  body;  by  which  1  mean 
that  it  is  continually  retracing  its  steps,  coming  out  of 
the  heart  to,  return  to  it,  re-entering  it  only  to  leave  it 
again,  and  so  on  without  intermission,  until  the  hour  of 
death. 

The  history  of  the  Digestion,  which  we  have  just  gone 
through,  goes  on  quietly  from  one  end  to  the  other  with- 
out any  complication. 

That  of  the  Circulation,  which  we  are  about  to  begin, 
is  mixed  up  with  another  history,  from  which  it  cannot 
be  kept  separate  while  the  description  is  going  on,  al- 
though the  two  histories  are  in  reality  quite  distinct 
from  each  other. 

The  blood  describes  two  circles,  to  speak  correctly  : 
1st.  A  wide  one,  which  extends  from  the  extremities  of 
the  body  to  the  heart,  and  back  again  from  the  heart  to 
the  extremities.  2d.  A  more  contracted  one,  which 
goes  from  the  heart  to  the  lungs,  and  back  from  the 
lungs  to  the  heart.  Whilst  circulating  in  the  lungs,  it 
encounters  the  air  we  breathe ;  and  here  takes  place, 
between  it  and  the  air,  one  of  the  most  curious  trans- 
actions imaginable,  without  which  the  blood  would  not 
be  able  to  nourish  the  body  even  for  five  minutes.  This 
is  called  RESPIRATION,  or  the  act  of  breathing. 

Digestion,  circulation,  respiration,  the  three  histories 
together  form  but  one — that  of  NUTRITION,  or  the  act  of 
nourishing  ;  in  other  words,  of  supporting  life. 

This  is  what  I  called  eating  at  first,  that  I  might  not 
mystify  you  at  the  beginning  with  hard  words.  But  now 
that  we  are  growing  learned  ourselves,  we  must  accus- 
tom ourselves  to  the  terms  in  use  among  learned  people, 
especially  when  they  are  not  more  formidable  than  those 
I  have  just  taught  you. 

Our  next  subject  for  consideration,  then,  will  be  the 


102  THE   CHYLE. 

circulation ;  and  we  will  begin  with  the  heart,  since 
that  is  to  the  circulation  what  the  stomach  is  to  the  di- 
gestion— viz.,  master  of  the  establishment.  He  is  a 
very  important  person,  this  heart,  as  I  hardly  need  tell 
you.  Even  ignorant  people  speak  respectfully  of  him, 
and  I  am  sure  beforehand  that  his  history  will  interest 
you  very  much. 

Do  you  feel  as  I  do,  my  dear  child?  I  am  quite 
happy  at  having  brought  you  thus  far  on  our  journey, 
and  at  being  able  to  take  a  rest  with  you  at  the  gateway 
of  the  new  country  into  which  we  are  about  to  enter, 
like  travelers  sitting  down  upon  a  boundary  frontier. 
What  a  distance  we  have  come,  since  the  day  when  I 
took  you  by  the  hand  to  conduct  you  inside  this  little 
body,  of  which  you  were  making  use  without  knowing 
anything  about  it !  How  many  things  we  have  learned 
already,  and  how  many  more  remain  to  be  learned,  of 
which  you  have  at  present  no  idea !  I  assure  you  I 
should  be  almost  afraid  myself  of  what  is  before  us  yet, 
if  I  did  not  rely  upon  my  own  strong  desire  to  instruct 
you,  and  the  tender  affection  I  bear  to  you.  Believe  me, 
the  greatest  of  constraining  powers  is  love  ;  and  when 
I  get  bewildered  in  the  midst  of  some  difficult  explana- 
tion which  will  not  come  out  clearly,  I  have  only  to 
place  before  me  those  laughing  eyes  of  yours,  where 
sleeps  a  soul  that  must  soon  awaken  to  consciousness,  in 
order  to  make  the  daylight  come  into  my  own ! 

Must  I  add,  too,  that  I  am  not  working  for  you  only  ? 
We  are  all  placed  in  this  world  to  help  each  other,  and  in 
striving  to  bring  down  light  into  your  intellect,  and 
good  sentiments  into  your  heart,  I  am  thinking  also  of 
those  to  whom  you,  in  your  turn,  may  render  the  same 
good  service  hereafter,  provided  I  have  the  happiness  of 


THE   CHYLE.  103 

succeeding  now  with  you.  This  ought  to  be  so,  ought 
it  not?  You  should  resolve  to  be  numbered  one  day 
among  those  who  have  not  lived  altogether  for  them- 
selves, but  who  have  given  the  world  something  worth 
having  as  they  passed  through  it.  To-day's  labor  will 
have  been  well  employed  if,  later  on,  it  turns  out  that 
this  history  of  the  chyle  has  not  been  told  you  in  vain  I 


LETTER     XIII. 

THE   HEART. 

THERE  was  once  upon  a  time  a  banker,  a  millionaire, 
who  could  reckon  his  wealth  not  by  millions  only,  but 
by  hundreds  of  millions  and  more  ;  who  was,  in  fact,  so 
tremendously  rich  that  he  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
his  money — a  difficulty  in  which  nobody  had  ever  been 
before. 

This  man  took  it  into  his  head  to  build  a  palace  infin- 
itely superior  to  anything  that  had  hitherto  been  seen. 
Marbles,  carpets,  gildings,  silk  hangings,  pictures,  and 
statues — in  fact,  the  whole  mass  of  common-place  luxuries 
as  one  sees  them  even  in  the  grandest  royr,l  abodes,  fell 
short  of  his  magnificent  pretensions.  He  vras  an  intel' 
ligent  man,  and  thoroughly  understood  the  respect  due  to 
his  riches  ;  and  the  common  fate  of  kings  seemed  to  him 
far  too  shabby  for  the  entertainment  of  his  dynasty,  which 
he  looked  upon  as  very  superior  to  all  the  families  of 
crowned  heads  in  the  world.  In  consequence  he  sent  to 
the  four  quarters  of  the  globe  for  the  most  illustrious 
professors,  the  most  skilful  engineers,  the  cleverest  and 
most  ingenious  workmen  in  every  department ;  and 
giving  them  unlimited  permission  as  to  expenditure* 
ordered  them  to  adorn  his  palace  with  all  the  wonders 
of  science  and  human  industry. 

Science,  and  human  industry,  and  unlimited  means — 
(104) 


THE   HEART.  105 

what  will  they  not  accomplish  ?  No  wonder  that  noth- 
ing was  talked  of  for  a  hundred  miles  around  but  the 
magic  building — of  which,  by  the  way,  I  do  not  venture 
to  give  you  a  description,  because  it  would  carry  me  too 
far  away.  Let  it  suffice  to  say,  that  never  Emperor  of 
China,  Caliph  of  Bagdad,  or  Great  Mogul  had  such  a 
habitation  as  our  banker,  and  for  a  -very  good  reason — 
he  was  twenty  times  as  rich  as  any  such  gentry  as  I 
have  named  ever  were  in  their  lives. 

When  all  was  finished  one  trifling  flaw  was  discovered  : 
the  place  was  not  supplied  with  water.  A  spring-seeker, 
who  was  summoned  to  the  premises,  could  only  discover 
a  small  subterranean  watercourse,  a  sort  of  zigzag  pipe, 
formed  by  nature,  between  two  beds  of  clay,  in  which  the 
rain  of  the  neighborhood  collected  as  in  a  sort  of  reser- 
voir. The  water  was  neither  very  clear  nor  very  plenti- 
ful, as  you  may  imagine  ;  and  the  professor  appointed  to 
examine  it,  having  begun  by  tasting  it,  made  a  horrible 
face,  and  declared  there  was  no  use  in  proceeding  any 
further  ;  for  it  had  a  stagnant  flavor  which  would  not 
be  agreeable  to  my  lord. 

To  the  amazement  of  every  body,  my  lord  jumped  for 
joy  when  he  heard  this  unpleasant  news.  It  was  pro- 
posed to  him  to  fetch  water  from  a  river  which  flowed  a 
few  miles'  distance  off ;  but  he  would  hear  of  nothing 
of  the  sort.  What  he  wanted  was  something  new,  unex- 
pected, impossible — that  was  his  object  throughout.  He 
took  a  pen  and  drew  up  at  a  sitting  the  following  pro- 
gramme, which  caused  our  poor  professors  to  open  their 
eyes  in  dismay  : — 

1st.  We  will  use  the  water  on  the  premises. ' 

2ndly.  It  shall  flow  night  day  and  in  all  parts  of  the 
palace  at  once. 
5* 


106  THE   HEAET. 

Srdly.  There  shall  be  plenty  of  it,  and  it  shall  be 
good. 

The  professors  looked  at  each  other  for  some  time 
without  speaking,  and  the  gravest  of  them,  whose  for- 
tunes and  characters  had  been  long  ago  established, 
suggested  that  they  should  simply  give  my  lord  and  his 
money  the  slip,  and  so  teach  him  to  make  fools  of  people 
another  time ! 

But  the  youngsters,  less  easily  discouraged,  cried  out 
against  this  with  one  accord.  They  declared  that  the 
honor  of  science  was  at  stake,  and  that  they  ought  to 
return  impudence  for  impudence,  by  executing  to  the  let- 
ter the  impertinent  programme  !  At  length,  after  much 
discussion  and  many  propositions  made  against  all  hope, 
and  thrown  aside  one  after  the  other  as  impracticable,  a 
sudden  inspiration  crossed  the  brain  of  an  engineer  who 
had  not  yet  spoken  ;  and  the  following  is  what  he  pro- 
posed : — 

What  prevented  the  water  from  being  sweet  and  fit  to 
drink,  was  the  want  of  movement  and  air.  What  had  to 
be  done,  therefore,  was  to  erect  a  pump,  but  a  pump  pro- 
vided with  numberless  small  pipes,  extending  to  the 
watercourse  in  all  directions,  and  so  arranged  that  by 
means  of  them  it  should  be  able  to  draw  up  the  water 
from  all  the  corners  and  windings  where  it  lay  stagna- 
ting, and  then  forcing  it  forward  into  a  pipe  terminating 
in  a  rose,  like  that  of  a  watering-pot,  whence  it  should 
gush  out  to  fall  down  in  fine  rain,  into  a  reservoir  in  the 
open  air.  From  thence  another  action  of  the  pump  was 
to  bring  it  back  well  aerated,  to  send  it  once  more  into 
a  large  pipe  with  numerous  lesser  ramifications,  which 
should  convey  it  into  every  corner  of  the  palace. 
Up  to  this  point  all  seemed  practicable,  but  the  hardest 


THE   HEART.  107 

part  had  not  yet  come.  The  great  difficulty  was  how  to 
supply  this  enormous  consumption  with  so  slender  a  run- 
nel of  water  as  the  one  at  their  disposal.  But  our  en- 
gineer had  provided  for  this  by  a  stroke  of  genius. 

Under  each  of  the  taps  (always  kept  open),  which 
were  dispersed  all  over  the  palace,  he  would  place  a 
small  cistern,  from  the  bottom  of  which  should  go  a 
pipe  communicating  with  the  body  of  the  force-pump 
which  drew  up  the  water  from  the  original  watercourse. 
By  which  means  the  water  which  ran  from  the  taps 
would  be  taken  up  again  and  go  back  to  feed  the  reser- 
voir in  the  open  air  ;  whence  it  would  again  return  to 
supply  the  taps  ;  and  so  on  and  on,  the  same  water  con- 
tinually keeping  the  game  alive,  as  people  call  it.  Have 
you  not  sometimes  seen  at  a  circus  or  theatre  a  large 
army  represented  by  a  hundred  supernumeraries,  who 
file  in  close  columns  before  the  audience,  going  out  at 
one  side  of  the  stage  and  coming  in  at  the  other,  follow- 
ing close  at  each  other's  heels  indefinitely  ?  By  a  similar 
artifice  the  engineer  would  change  his  meagre  little  run- 
nel into  an  inexhaustible  fountain.  The  water  drawn 
up  from  the  watercourse  by  each  stroke  of  the  pump 
would  fully  compensate  for  what  was  used  in  its  passage 
through  the  palace  by  the  inhabitants.  Lastly  as  it 
might  sometimes  happen  that  the  said  inhabitants  wash- 
ed their  hands  under  the  taps,  the  water  on  its  return  to 
the  cisterns,  was  to  pass  through  a  series  of  small  filters, 
in  order  to  cleanse  it  from  any  impurity  it  might  have 
contracted  by  the  way.  Always  flowing,  always  limpid, 
it  would  soon  lose  every  trace  of  its  original  source,  and 
might  defy  comparison  with  the  water  of  any  river  in 
the  world ! 

A  unanimous  buzz  of  congratulations  welcomed  this 
plan,  at  once  so  simple  and  so  bold,  and  our  professors 


108  THE   HEART. 

thought  their  troubles  were  over,  but  they  were  not  at 
the  end  of  their  difficulties  yet.  When  it  came  to  the 
actual  erection  of  the  machine,  (naturally  a  most  com- 
plicated one,  as  it  had  to  set  a-going  a  quintuple  system 
of  pipes — pipes  from  the  water-course  to  the  pump,  pipes 
from  the  pump  to  the  reservoir,  .pipes  from  the  reservoir 
to  the  pump,  from  the  pump  to  the  taps,  and  from  the 
taps  to  the  pump  again,)  —  our  banker,  who  had  got 
amused  and  excited  as  they  went  on,  conducted  them  to 
a  small  dark  closet,  only  a  few  square  feet  in  size,  con- 
cealed in  a  corner  of  the  large  apartments,  and  informed 
them  with  a  laugh  that  he  had  no  other  place  to  offer 
them.  Besides  which,  he  made  them  understand  that  on 
account  of  its  situation,  there  could  be  no  question  of 
furnaces  or  boilers  being  set  up  there  (he  detested 
equally  coal-smoke,  fires,  and  explosions) — nor  of  work- 
men employed  about  the  machine  (it  would  not  be  decent 
to  have  them  going  up  and  down  the  front  staircase) — 
nor  above  all,  of  the  frightful  brake- wheels  always 
screeching  and  grinding,  the  unwieldy  pistons  rising  and 
falling  with  a  noise  sufficient  to  give  one  the  headache. 
He  himself  slept  near  the  little  dark  closet,  and  the 
slightest  noise  was  fatal  to  his  repose.  Having  explain- 
ed alibis,  the  rich  man  curtly  made  his  bow  and  re- 
tired. 

For  once  our  professors  owned  themselves  beaten. 
They  had  come  forward  quite  proud  of  their  invention, 
and  now  they  were  received,  not  with  ecstasies  of  de- 
light, but  with  fresh  demands,  more  ridiculous  even  than 
the  first.  They  were  decidedly  being  mystified,  and 
were  preparing  in  consequence  to  pack  up  and  begone, 
furious,  and  swearing  by  all  their  gods  that  they  would 
never  again  expose  science  to  see  itself  disgraced  by  a 
purse-proud  vulgarian's  scorn ;  when,  lo !  happily,  a 


• 

THE   HEART.  109 

good  fairy,  the  special  friend  of  learned  men,  came  pass- 
ing by  that  way.  She  raised  her  enchanted  wand  with 
the  tip  of  her  finger,  and  all  at  once  a  little  girl  dressed 
in  rags  appeared  in  the  midst  of  our  astonished  pro- 
fessors. Without  giving  them  time  to  recover  them- 
selves, the  child  put  her  hand  into  the  little  patched 
waist  of  her  dress,  and  drew  forth  a  rounded  object, 
about  the  size  of  her  closed  fist  from  which  hung  a 
quantity  of  tubes  spreading  in  all  directions. 

"  See !"  cried  she  ;  "  here  is  the  machine  your  banker 
demands  of  you." 

Picture  to  yourself  a  small  closed  bag,  narrowing  to 
a  point  at  the  end,  and  separated  within  into  two  very 
distinct  compartments  by  a  fleshy  partition  which  went 
across  the  inside  from  the  top  to  the  bottom.  Such  was 
the  object  held  up  by  the  little  girl.  From  each  of  these 
compartments  issued  a  thick  tube,  ramifying  into  endless 
smaller  ones  ;  and  they  were  moreover  each  surmounted 
by  a  sort  of  pouch,  into  which  ran  another  tube,  of  the 
same  description  as  the  first.  Each  of  these  four  por- 
tions (the  two  compartments  and  their  pouches)  was  in 
constant  but  independent  motion,  distending  and  con- 
tracting alternately ;  and  by  carefully  examining  the 
noiseless  play  of  this  singular  machine,  (the  wails  of 
which  were,  by  the  magic  power  of  the  fairy,  rendered 
transparent  to  the  bystanders,)  the  learned  assembly 
were  very  soon  enabled  to  convince  themselves,  that  it 
fulfilled  all  the  monstrous  conditions  exacted  of  them 
by  the  fantastic  millionaire. 

All  was  in  movement  together,  I  told  you ;  but  let  us 
begin  at  one  end.  The  right-hand  compartment  and  its 
pouch  represented  the  first  pump ;  the  pump  employed 
to  draw,  by  the  same  stroke,  the  water  from  the  stag- 
nant channel,  and  that  from  the  taps.  It  was  perfectly 
easy  to  distinguish  the  two  systems  of  pipes,  and  how 


110  THE   HEART. 

they  united  together  at  the  small  pouch  on  their  arrival, 
When  this  was  distended,  a  vacuum  was  created  inside, 
which  was  instantly  filled  by  the  liquid  from  the  tube 
which  ran  into  it,  (do  not  ask  me  why  or  how  ;  I  will 
explain  that  presently).  When  it  contracted  again,  the 
liquid  which  had  just  entered  was  not  able  to  get  back, 
being  prevented  from  so  doing  by  a  very  ingenious  and 
simple  contrivance,  which  requires  a  brief  explanation. 

Take  off  the  lock  from  your  chamber-door,  which 
opens  inside ;  then,  standing  outside,  push  against  it 
with  your  shoulder,  and  you  will  get  in  without  any 
difficulty.  But  when  you  are  in,  try  to  push  the  door 
open  again  with  your  shoulder  in  order  to  get  outside 
into  the  passage,  and  you  will  find  that  you  will  not  be 
able  to  pass  through,  and  this  simply  because  it  does  not 
open  on  that  side. 

Which  was  exactly  what  happened  to  the  liquid  in 
the  pouch ! 

The  door  between  the  tube  and  the  pouch  only  opened 
inwardly,  and  the  liquid  finding  itself  pressed  on  all 
sides  in.  proportion  as  the  pouch  contracted  more  and 
more,  and  unable  to  return,  was  obliged  at  last  to  make 
its  way  through  another  similar  door  which  led  to  the 
large  compartment  below.  Here  the  same  game  recom- 
menced. The  compartment  which  had  distended  itself 
to  receive  it,  contracted  in  its  turn,  and  the  liquid  find- 
ing the  road  again  barred  behind  it,  had  no  choice  but 
to  force  its  way  through  the  tube  which  led  to  the  air- 
reservoir. 

Here  commenced  the  work  of  the  second  pump, — the 
pump  of  the  left  compartment.  The  little  pouch,  when 
distended,  was  filled  by  the  liquid  from  the  reservoir, 
and  then  forced  it  forward  into  the  large  compartment 
below,  always  by  means  of  the  same  process.  This  com- 
partment again  drove  it,  by  a  powerful  contraction,  into 


THE   HEART.  Ill 

the  large  conducting  tube  charged  with  the  office  of  its 
general  distribution  throughout  the  body.  At  the  end 
of  all  which,  it  returned  once  more  into  the  right-hand 
pump  as  before,  to  pursue  the  same  course  again,  &c.,  &c. 

Thus,  as  you  see,  the  whole  mechanism  turned  upon 
two  little  points  of  detail,  of  the  simplest  description 
possible  ;  namely,  first,  on  the  entrance-doors  only  open- 
ing on  one  side  ;  and  secondly,  on  the  elastic  covers  of 
the  pouches  and  compartments  distending  and  contract- 
ing spontaneously.  It  was  the  prettiest  thing  in  the 
world  to  see  this  unpretending-looking  little  bag  working 
thus,  quite  naturally,  without  a  suspicion  that  it  was 
solving  a  problem  which  so  many  men,  proud  of  their 
science,  had  given  up  as  hopeless.  Certainly  here  was 
a  machine  which  made  no  noise  !  Once  installed  in  its 
dark  closet,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  place  your 
hand  upon  it  to  find  out  that  it  moved  at  all.  My  lord 
could  certainly  sleep  beside  it  without  disturbance. 

"  How  much  do  you  want  for  it  ?"  said  they  to  the 
poor  little  beggar  girl.  "  Name  your  price ;  have  no 
fear  ;  we  will  pay  you  anything  you  wish." 

"I  cannot  give  it  to  you,"  replied  the  child  ;  "  I  need 
it  too  much  myself:  IT  is  My  HEART.  Now  that  you 
have  seen  it,  make  another  like  it,  if  you  can."  And 
she  disappeared. 

It  is  said  that  the  engineer,  who  longed  to  see  his 
idea  carried  out,  tried  hard  to  construct  a  similar  ma- 
chine with  gutta-percha  and  iron  wires,  and  to  set  it  in 
motion  by  electricity.  But  history  does  not  tell  us  that 
he  succeeded,  and  we  have  yet  to  ask  ourselves  whether 
the  richest  man  in  the  world,  aided  by  the  wisest  men 
in  the  world,  could  ever  provide  himself  with  a  miracle 
of  wonder,  such  as  the  ragged  child  had  received  as  a 
free  gift  from  the  hands  of  a  gracious  Creator. 


LETTER   XIV. 

THE   ARTERIES. 

IP  you  have  thorougly  understood  the  story  I  last  told 
you,  my  child,  it  will  have  revealed  to  you  the  whole 
mystery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  you  are  at 
the  present  moment  wiser  than  all  the  learned  men  of 
antiquity  and  the  middle  ages,  for  they  had  none  of  them 
the  faintest  surmise  of  the  truth. 

It  may,  perhaps,  seem  odd  to  you  that  men  should  have 
existed  for  upwards  of  five  thousand  years  without  mak- 
ing inquiry  into  a  matter  which  so  closely  concerned 
them,  and  which  was  so  easy  to  find  out.  Is  it  not  al- 
most incredible  that  so  many  hearts  should  have  beaten 
for  so  long  a  period  without  any  of  their  owners  having 
felt  a  wish  to  know  exactly  why  ?  Yet  so  it  is.  The  ac- 
tion of  the  heart  and  the  flow  of  the  blood  have  not  been 
understood  for  much  more  than  two  hundred  years,  and 
the  man  whose  name  is  attached  to  this  great  discovery 
richly  deserves  that  we  should  say  a  few  words  about 
him. 

He  was  called  Harvey.  He  was  an  Englishman ; 
physician  to  King  Charles  I.,  who  was  beheaded  in  1648  ; 
and  when  he  first  ventured  publicly  to  teach  that  the 
blood  was  constantly  circulating  from  one  end  of  the 
human  body  to  the  other,  perpetually  returning  and  re- 
tracing its  steps,  a  great  scandal  was  created  in  the 
world.  He  was  called  a  fool, — an  impertinent  innova- 

(112) 


THE   ARTERIES.  113 

tor, — a  madman.  His  words  shattered  old  doctrines, 
and  he  only  received  for  his  reward  all  the  petty  annoy- 
ances which  men  are  apt  to  lavish  so  freely  upon  any 
one  who  tells  them  something  new ;  because — do  you 
see  ? — it  is  so  disagreeable  to  be  disturbed  in  one's  habits 
and  preconceived  ideas. 

Harvey  is  not  the  only  one  in  the  history  of  mankind 
who  has  committed  the  sin  of  being  right  in  defiance  of 
the  opinions  of  his  age.  It  is  true  posterity  takes  account 
afterwards  of  the  labors  of  genius,  and  inscribes  a  fresh 
name  upon  her  list.  But  one  must  pay  for  this  glory 
in  one's  lifetime.  One  cannot  have  everything  at 
once. 

This  is  an  old  story,  my  child,  but  always  new  never- 
theless ;  and  for  my  own  part  it  is,  I  own,  one  of  my 
pleasures  to  amuse  myself  by  reflecting  how"  much  cause 
for  laughter  three-fourths  of  the  great  men  of  the  present 
day  are  providing  for  the  little  girls  who  shall  be  alive 
two  centuries  hence.  Time  is  a  great  avenger,  and  puts 
many  things  and  men  in  their  proper  places. 

Let  us  pause  here  a  moment  while  we  are  speaking  of 
Harvey.  I  should  be  curious  to  know  what  any  one  of 
the  courtiers  of  Charles  L,  bedecked  in  feathers,  ribbons 
and  laces,  would  have  said  to  the  valet  who  would  have 
placed  the  excellent  Harvey,  with  his  insane  invention, 
above  his  most  gracious  majesty,  the  lord  and  king  of 
all  Great  Britain !  And  yet  what  is  his  most  gracious 
majesty  to.  you  to-day  ?  What  do  you  owe  to  him  ?  in 
what  does  he  interest  you  ?  T\Jhile  you  can  never  hear 
the  name  of  Harvey  pronounced  without  remembering 
that  you  are  under  many  obligations  to  him !  A  thou- 
sand years  hence,  when  society  shall  have  made  the  great 
progress  which  may  reasonably  be  expected,  the  name 
of  Harvey  will  be  familiar  to  every  one  who  owns  a 


114  THE   ARTERIES. 

heart,  while  that  of  Charles  I.  will  be  only  a  vanished 
shadow  ;  a  souvenir  lost  in  the  maze  of  history. 

Our  debt  of  remembrance  paid,  let  us  return  to  the 
heart — the  little  closed  bag  which  labors  so  prettily. 
We  must  now  inquire  the  real  names  of  whatever  has 
figured  in  our  story. 

The  two  great  compartments  are  called  ventricles,  the 
two  small  pouches  auricles,  and  they  are  also  distin- 
guished as  being  on  the  right  or  left  side  ; — right  ventri- 
cle, left  ventricle,  right  auricle,  left  auricle. 

The  inner  doors  on  which  depends  all  the  action  of  the 
machine,  are  called  valvelets.  By-and-bye,  when  the 
pump  and  the  steam-engine  are  explained  to  you,  you 
will  meet  again  with  these  treacherous  doors,  which 
never  allow  what  has  once  entered  to  go  back  again  ; 
but  then  we  shall  call  them  valves. 

The  air-reservoir,  I  need  scarcely  tell  you,  is  the  lung, 
to  which  the  blood  goes  to  put  itself  in  contact  with  the 
air. 

The  subterranean  watercourse,  of  which  I  hope  we 
have  talked  long  enough,  is  the  small  intestine,  in  which 
the  chyle  collects  ;  and  the  tubes  which  run  into  it  are, 
of  course,  the  chyliferous  vessels,  the  only  channels  by 
which  anything  reaches  the  heart  which  has  not  pre- 
viously gone  out  from  it. 

The  tubes  of  distribution,  which  run  out  from  the  ma- 
chine in  all  directions,  are  called  with  us  arteries ;  the 
return  tubes,  which  bring  back  the  water  to  the  machine, 
.are  called  veins. 

Finally,  we  have  not  exactly  the  filters  employed  to 
clear  the  water  from  the  impurities  contracted  as  it  goes 
along,  for  no  such  thing  exists  in  us.  There  are  in  our 
case  the  refuse-chambers  of  which  I  have  already  spoken, 
in  connexion  with  the  liver,  where  the  blood  disembar- 


THE   ARTERIES.  115 

rasses  itself  of  any  useless  materials;  and  from  which  it 
comes  out  with  clean  pockets,  so  to  speak,  reverting  to 
the  comparison  of  which  we  have  already  availed  our- 
selves. 

As  you  see,  then,  everything  comes  round  again  ;  and 
the  bright  idea  which  our  professors  hit  upon  in  order 
to  satisfy  the  caprice  of  the  banker  is  exactly  carried 
out  in  your  own  body,  only  a  thousand  times  more  per- 
fectly than  could  have  been  done  by  them  all,  even  with 
all  their  science  added  to  all  his  money. 

I  mentioned  that  the  shrewdest  of  the  party  boasted 
about  making  an  artificial  heart.  But,  let  me  tell  you, 
there  is  one  "thing  I  would  have  defied  him  to  imitate, 
by  any  expedient  he  could  devise,  and  that  is  the  inimi- 
table construction  of  the  arteries  and  veins,  and  the  in- 
comprehensible delicacy  of  their  innumerable  ramifica- 
tions. 

Let  us  talk  a  little  about  these  marvellous  tubes,  and 
begin  with  the  arteries,  which  have  the  most  important 
part  to  play. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  doctor  try  the  pulse  of  his  patient  ? 
Take  hold  of  your  own  wrist  and  search  a  little  above 
the  thumb.  You  will  soon  find  the  place  and  feel  some- 
thing beating  against  your  finger.  There  is  an  artery 
which  passes  there,  and  the  little  beating  you  feel  is  the 
rebound  of  the  pulsations  of  your  heart.  Every  time 
that  the  left  ventricle,  by  contracting  itself,  chases  the 
blood  into  the  arteries,  these,  of  which  the  tissue  is  very 
elastic,  become  distended  all  at  once,  and  then  contract 
again,  repeating  the  process  whenever  a  fresh  gush  of 
blood  arrives,  so  that  their  movement  is  exactly  regu- 
lated by  the  movement  of  the  heart.  It  is  true  the  two 
movements  are  in  a  contrary  direction  ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  artery  becomes  distended,  while  the  heart  contracts, 


116  THE   ARTERIES. 

and  contracts  when  the  heart  enlarges  itself ;  but  that 
makes  no  difference  to  the  doctor.  What  he  wants  to 
know  is,  with  what  force  and  rapidity  the  heart  of  the 
patient  beats,  and  I  will  explain  why.  It  is  an  interest- 
ing point  in  the  history  of  circulation. 

When  you  were  very  little — very  little  indeed,  my 
dear  child — your  heart  beat  from  130  to  140  times  in  a 
minute.  Afterwards  the  beats  sank  to  100  per  minute  ; 
then  to  fewer  still.  At  present  I  cannot  tell  you  the 
precise  number :  perhaps,  about  ninety.  When  you  arc 
a  grown-up  young  lady,  it  will  beat  about  eighty  times 
in  the  minute ;  when  you  are  a  mother,  about  seventy- 
three  times  ;  when  a  grandmother  (if  such  a  blessing  be 
granted  you),  only  from  fifty  to  sixty  times,  perhaps  even 
fewer.  People  tell  of  an  old  man  of  eighty-four  whose 
heart  beat  only  twenty-nine  times  in  the  sixty  seconds. 

Observe  that  in  all  my  calculations  I  have  taken  special 
care  to  prefix  the  word  about  to  the  numbers  mentioned. 
And  this  because,  in  point  of  fact,  the  heart  is  a  capri- 
cious creature,  which  has  no  exact  rules  to  go  by.  It 
changes  its  pace  on  every  occasion — fear,  joy,  every 
emotion  which  agitates  the  soul,  quickens  or  retards  its 
movements  ;  and  derangements  of  health  may  be  detect- 
ed by  its  pulsations,  which  are  infinitely  varied  in  char- 
acter. In  fever,  for  instance,  which  is  nothing  but  a 
race  of  the  blood  at  full  speed,  the  hearts  of  grown-up 
people  beat  as  quickly  as  those  of  little  children  ;  some- 
times, indeed,  more  quickly  still.  In  certain  maladies  it 
goes  with  great  sudden  leaps,  like  a  galloping  horse  ;  in 
others  it  trots  in  little  jerks ;  while  in  some  cases  it 
moves  slowly  and  wearily,  and  its  throbs  are  so  weak 
that  one  can  scarcely  feel  them. 

These  pulsations,  then,  afford  important  revelations  to 
the  doctor.  The  heart  is  for  him  a  gossiping  confidant, 


THE  ARTERIES.  117 

who  lets  out  the  secrets  of  illnesses,  however  closely  they 
may  fancy  themselves  hidden  in  the  remote  depths  of 
the  body.  When  the  doctor  lays  his  finger  on  the  pa- 
tient's pulse,  it  is  precisely  the  same  thing  to  him  as  if 
he  had  laid  it  on  his  heart,  only  with  this  difference, 
that  the  one  is  much  less  difficult  to  do,  and  much  sooner 
done  than  the  other. 

The  artery  of  the  wrist  is  in  fact  a  small  heart,  not 
only  because  it  follows  all  the  movements  of  the  large 
one,  but  because  it  carries  forward  the  work  which  the 
other  begins,  and  assists  also  in  propelling  the  blood  to 
the  furthest  extremities  of  the  limbs,  driving  it  on  in  its 
turn  at  each  of  its  own  contractions.  Imagine  a  fire- 
engine,  whose  pipes  should  take  up  and  drive  forwards 
along  their  whole  length  the  water  which  is  thrown  upon 
the  fire,  and  you  will  have  some  idea  of  the  marvellous 
machine  which  is  at  work  in  our  behalf  within  us.  Nor 
are  you  to  suppose  that  the  wrist-artery  is  a  specially 
privileged  one,  because  it  has  been  chosen  to  hold  inter- 
course with  physicians.  All  the  others  are  equally  ser- 
viceable ;  and  if  they  cannot  all  be  used  for  "  feeling  the 
pulse,"  it  is  because  they  are  generally  more  deeply  buried 
in  the  flesh,  where  it  is  not  easy  to  reach  them. 

Observe  your  mother  when  she  is  packing  a  trunk,  and 
you  will  see  that  whatever  she  is  most  afraid  maybe 
spoiled,  she  is  most  careful  to  put  in  the  middle,  so  that 
it  may  be  least  exposed  to  accidents.  And  this  is  what 
a  kind  Providence  has  done  with  the  arteries,  which 
have  the  utmost  cause  to  dread  accidents  ;  whilst  the 
veins,  which  are  much  better  able  to  bear  rough  usage, 
are  allowed  to  wander  about  freely  just  under  the  skin. 
But  when  the  bones  happen  to  take  up  a  great  deal  of 
room,  and  come  near  the  skin  themselves,  as  is  the  case 
in  the  wrist,  the  artery  is  forced,  whether  he  likes  it  or 


118  THE   ARTERIES. 

not,  to  venture  to  the  surface,  and  then  we  are  able  to 
put  our  fingers  upon  him. 

And  there  are  others  in  the  same  sort  of-  situation  ; 
the  artery  of  the  foot  for  instance.  But  only  just  think 
how  far  from  agreeable  it  would  be  to  have  to  take  off 
your  shoe  and  present  your  foot  to  the  doctor  ! 

The  artery  which  passes  to  the  temple,  just  by  the 
ear,  is  another  affair.  That  would  answer  the  purpose 
very  well  in  fact,  and  I  even  advise  you  to  make  use  of 
it  when  you  want  to  feel  your  own  pulse.  It  is  more 
easily  found  than  the  other  even,  and  its  pulsations  are 
still  more  easily  perceptible.  Nevertheless,  when  all  is 
said  and  done,  it  is  better  for  the  doctor  to  take  his 
patient  by  the  hand  than  by  the  head.  Merely  as  a 
matter  of  good  manners. 

I  will  now  make  you  acquainted  with  the  principal 
arteries,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  distribute  the 
blood  through  the  body. 

The  whole  of  the  blood  driven  out  by  the  left  ventricle 
at  each  of  its  contractions,  passes  into  one  large  canal 
called  the  aorta.  The  aorta  as  it  goes  away  at  first 
ascends ;  then  bends  back  in  a  curve ;  and  from  this 
curve,  which  is  called  the  arch  of  the  aorta  (from  its 
shape)  diverge  right  and  left,  certain  branch-pipes  which 
carry  the  blood  into  the  two  arms  and  on  each  side  of 
the  head  ;  and  which  are,  in  fact,  the  beginning,  or  up- 
per end,  of  those  whose  pulsations  we  feel  with  our 
fingers  in  the  two  wrists  and  at  the  temples. 

The  supply  to  the  upper  part  of  the  body  being  se- 
cured, the  aorta  begins  to  descend.  But  now  imagine 
of  what  importance  it  must  be,  that  this  head-artery — 
the  foster-father  of  the  whole  body — should  be  sheltered 
from  every  accident.  The  aorta  once  divided,  death  is 
inevitable  ;  you  might  as  well  have  your  head  cut  off  at 


THE   ARTERIES.  119 

once  j  and  thus  it  has  been  fixed  in  the  best — that  is  to 
say,  the  safest — place.  Of  course  you  know  what  is 
meant  by  the  backbone  or  spine,  called  also  the  vertebral 
column,  in  consequence  of  its  being  made  like  a  sort  of 
column  composed  of  a  series  of  small  bones  fastened 
together,  which  are  named  vertebrae.  Touch  it  and  feel 
how  solid  it  is,  and  how  few  dangers  there  can  be  for 
anything  placed  behind  it.  Well,  that  is  the  rampart 
which  has  been  given  to  the  Aorta.  As  this  descends, 
it  slips  behind  the  heart  and  takes  up  its  place  in  front 
of  the  vertebral  column  which  it  follows  all  the  way 
down  the  back,  just  to  the  top  of  the  loins.  There  it  is, 
so  to  speak,  almost  unassailable ;  in  fact  hardly  any 
cases  are  known  of  the  Aorta  being  wounded  ;  to  get  at 
it,  it  would  be  necessary  to  bestow  one  of  those  blows 
which  used  to  be  given  in  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  which 
cut  the  body  in  two.  There  was  an  end  of  the  Aorta,  as 
of  every  thing  else  then  ;  it  was  unfortunately  not  worth 
talking  about  any  longer ! 

The  next  time  you  see  a  fish  on  the  table,  ask  to  be 
shown  the  large  central  bone.  It  is  the  fish's  vertebral 
column,  and  it  will  give  you  an  idea  of  your  own,  for  it 
is  constructed  on  the  same  plan.  You  will  perceive  a 
blackish  thread  running  all  along  it — that  is  the  aorta. 

As  it  descends,  the  aorta  sends  off  on  its  passage  a 
great  number  of  arteries  which  carry  the  blood  into  all 
parts  of  the  body.  Arrived  at  the  loins  it  forms  a  fork ; 
dividing  into  two  great  branches,  which  continue  their 
descent,  one  on  each  side  the  body,  down  to  the  very 
extremities  of  the  two  feet. 

As  you  perceive,  dear  child,  this  is  not  very  difficult  to 
remember.  A  large  fork,  whose  two  points  are  at  the 
tips  of  the  feet,  the  handle  of  which  curves  at  the  top 
like  the  crook  of  a  crozier  ;  from  this  curve  come  four 


120  THE   ARTERIES. 

branches,  which  pass  into  the  two  arms  and  to  the  two 
sides  of  the  head — and  this  is  the  whole  story.  But  of 
course,  it  would  be  another  affair  were  I  to  enter  into 
the  detail  of  all  the  ramifications.  Here  it  is  that  all 
engineers,  past,  present,  and  future,  are  baffled,  defeated 
and  outdone !  Choose  any  place  you  please  upon  your 
body,  and  run  the  finest  needle  you  can  find  into  it, 
what  will  issue  from  the  puncture  ? 

"  Thanks  for  the  proposal,"  you  say  ;  "  I  have  no  oc- 
casion to  try  the  experiment,  to  discover  that  blood  will 
come  out." 

You  say  that  very  readily,  young  lady  ;  but  have  you 
ever  asked  yourself,  what  is  implied  by  your  being  so 
sure  before  hand  that  you  can  bring  blood  from  any  part 
of  your  body  if  you  choose  to  prick  it,  though  never  so 
slightly?  It  implies  that  there  is  not  on  your  whole 
frame  a  spot  the  size  of  a  needle's  point,  which  has  not 
its  own  little  canal  filled  with  blood  ;  for  if  there  were 
such  a  one,  there  at  any  rate  the  needle  would  pass  in 
without  tearing  the  canal,  and  causing  the  blood  to  flow 
out.  And  now  count  the  number  of  places  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom  of  your  dear  little  self,  on  which  one  could 
put  the  point  of  a  needle,  and  even  when  you  have  counted 
them  all,  do  not  fancy  you  have  arrived  at  the  number 
of  the  tiny  tubes  of  blood.  Compared  to  these,  your 
needle  is  a  coarse  stake,  and  tears  not  one  but  a  thou- 
sand of  these  little  tubes  in  its  passage. 

That  seems  to  you  rather  a  strong  expression,  does  it 
not  ?  But  let  me  make  good  my  boldness.  A  needle's 
point  is  very  fine,  I  admit ;  but  a  person  who  could  not 
see  it  without  spectacles  must  have  very  poor  sight. 
Whereas  the  last  subdivisions  of  the  blood-tubes  are  so 
attenuated,  that  the  best  eyes  in  the  world,  your  own 
included,  cannot  distinguish  them.  You  are  astonished 


THE   ARTERIES.  121 

at  this,  and  yet  it  is  nothing  compared  to  what  fol- 
lows. 

No  doubt  you  have  heard  of  the  microscope, — that 
wonderful  instrument  by  which  you  may  see  objects  a 
thousand  a  hundred  thousand,  a  million  times,  if  neces- 
sary, larger  than  they  really  are.  With  the  microscope, 
therefore,  as  a  matter  of  course,  we  can  see  a  good  many 
of  those  tiny  canals  which  elude  our  unaided  sight. 
But,  alas !  we  discover  at  the  same  time  that  these  are 
by  no  means  the  last  subdivisions.  The  canals  invisible 
to  our  naked  eyes  subdivide  themselves  again  into  others, 
and  these  into  others  again,  and  so  it  goes  on,  till  at 
last — the  man  at  the  microscope  can  see  no  more,  but 
the  subdivisions  still  continue. 

You  were  ready  to  exclaim,  at  my  talking  of  thou- 
sands of  canals  being  torn  by  a  needle  in  passing 
through  ;  but  had  I  even  said  millions,  it  may  be  doubt- 
ed whether  I  should  have  spoken  the  whole  truth. 

Besides,  when  you  consider  the  office  of  the  T)lood, 
you  can  easily  understand  that  if  there  were  a  single 
atom  of  the  body  left  unvisited  by  him,  that  atom  could 
never  be  nourished.  Do  I  say  nourished?  I  have 
made  here  a  supposition  altogether  inadmissible  ;  it 
could  have  no  existence  at  all,  since  it  is  the  blood  only 
which  produces  it. 

These  imperceptible  canals  of  blood  have  been  called 
capillaries,  from  the  Latin  word,  capillus,  which  means  a 
hair  ;  because  the  old  learned  men,  who  had  no  suspicion 
of  the  wonders  hereafter  to  be  revealed  by  the  micro- 
scope, could  think  of- no  better  way  of  expressing  their 
delicacy,  than  by  comparing  them  to  hairs.  Yery  likely 
they  thought  even  this  a  great  compliment,  but  your 
delicate  fair  hairs,  fine  as  they  are,  are  absolute  cables — 
and  coarse  cables  too,  believe  me,  compared  to  the  ca 
6 


122  THE   ARTERIES. 

pillary  vessels  which  extend  to  every  portion  of  your 
body. 

Observe  further,  that  each  of  these  arterial  capillaries 
is  necessarily  composed  (being  the  continuation  of  the 
large  ones)  of  three  coats  enclosed  one  within  the  other, 
which  can  be  perfectly  distinguished  in  arteries  of  a 
tolerable  size  ;  add  to  this  that  within  these  coats  there 
is  blood,  and  in  the  blood  some  thirty  substances  we 
know  of,  not  to  speak  of  those  we  do  not  know  ;  and 
then  you  will  begin  to  form  some  notion  of  the  marvels 
collected  together  in  each  poor  little  morsel  of  your 
body,  however  minute  a  one  you  may  picture  to  yourself. 


LETTER  XY. 

THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  THE  ORGANS. 

WHEN  I  said  formerly  that  our  dear  and  wondeiful 
steward  the  blood,  was  everywhere  at  once,  you  little 
suspected  the  prodigies  involved  in  that  everywhere.  But 
you  will  have  a  glimpse  of  them  now,  when  I  tell  you  it 
is  at  the  extremities  of  the  capillary  arteries  that  he 
carries  on  his  distribution  of  goods,  and  accomplishes 
a  mysterious  act  of  nutrition ;  a  wonder  much  greater 
even  than  that  of  which  we  have  just  spoken.  Here, 
indeed,  the  question  is  no  longer  mechanical  divisions, 
whose  delicacy,  surprising  as  it  may  be,  is  yet  within 
our  powers  of  comprehension.  What  is  more  surpris- 
ing still,  what  moreover  we  cannot  comprehend  at  all, 
is  the  delicate  sensitiveness  of  tact — I  would  almost  say 
of  instinct — with  which  each  one  of  the  million  millions 
of  tiny  atoms  of  which  our  body  is  composed,  draws 
out  of  the  blood — the  common  food  of  all — exactly 
that  aliment  which  is  necessary  to  it,  leaving  the  rest  to 
his  neighbor,  and  this  without  ever  making  a  mistake. 

You  have  never  thought  about  this  ;  for  children  go 
on  living  at  their  ease,  as  if  it  was  the  simplest  thing  in 
the  world  to  do  ;  never  suspecting  even  that  their  life  is 
a  continued  miracle,  and  never,  of  course,  therefore, 
feeling  bound  to  be  grateful  to  the  Author  of  that  mira- 
cle. And  alas !  how  many  hundreds  of  people  live  and 
die  children  in  that  respect. 

(123) 


124       THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  THE  ORGANS. 

But  what  would  happen,  I  should  like  to  know,  if  the 
eye  took  to  seizing  upon  the  food  of  the  nail,  if  the 
hairs  stopped  on  the  way  what  was  intended  for  the 
muscles,  if  the  tongue  absorbed  what  ought  to  go  to  the 
teeth,  and  the  teeth  what  ought  to  go  to  the  tongue  ? 
Yet  what  prevents  their  doing  so  ?  Can  you  tell  me  ? 
They  all  drink  alike  out  of  the  same  cup.  The  same 
blood  goes  to  furnish  them  all.  The  substances  that  it 
brings  to  the  eye  are  the  same  as  those  which  it  brings 
to  the  nail  ;  and  nevertheless  the  eye  takes  from  it  that 
which  makes  an  eye,  and  the  nail  that  which  makes  a 
nail. 

How  is  this  done,  do  you  think?  that  is  the  question. 

When  the  doctors  reply  to  this,  that  each  organ  has 
its  peculiar  sensibility,  which  makes  it  recognize  and 
imbibe  from  the  blood  one  particular  substance  and  no 
other,  they  are  strangely  mistaken  if  they  flatter  them- 
selves that  they  have  really  answered  anything.  They 
have  done  nothing  but  reproduce  the  question  in  other 
words,  for  it  is  precisely  that  sensibility  which  requires 
explanation,  and  to  tell  us  that  it  exists,  does  not  ex- 
plain much,  you  must  own.  If  you  were  to  ask  why  you 
had  got  a  headache,  and  some  one  were  to  reply  that  it 
was  because  your  head  ached,  you  would  not  be  much 
the  wiser  I  fancy. 

Each  of  our  organs,  then,  may  be  considered  as  a  dis- 
tinct being,  having  its  separate  life,  and  its  particular 
likings.  These  organs  behave  towards  the  blood  like 
men  who  recognize  some  friend  in  a  crowd,  and  proceed 
to  seize  him  by  the  arm  ;  and  when  I  told  you  just  now 
that  they  never  made  a  mistake,  I  spoke  of  their  regular 
course  of  action  in  ordinary  circumstances.  Like  men, 
they  also  make  mistakes  sometimes,  in  certain  cases  ; 
and  take  one  substance  for  another,  or  do  not  recognize 


THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  THE  ORGANS.       125 

the  one  they  are  in  need  of ;  an  unanswerable  proof  that 
at  other  times  they  exercise  a  sort  of  discernment,  and 
do  not  act  by  a  sort  of  fatality,  as  one  might  be  tempted 
to  believe.  Look  at  the  bones,  for  instance.  They  are 
composed  of  gelatine  (which  cooks  serve  up  under  the 
name  of  meat-jelly,  but  which  would  be  more  properly 
called  bone-jelly),  and  of  phosphate  of  lime,  a  kind  of 
stone  of  which  we  have  spoken  before,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  and  from  which  they  get  all  their  solidity.  Origi- 
nally, the  substance  of  the  bone  is  entirely  gelatinous, 
and  the  phosphate  of  lime  deposits  itself  therein  by  de- 
grees, as  time  goes  on,  and  always  in  greater  abundance 
as  we  advance  in  age. 

Properly  the  bones  borrow  only  gelatine  and  phos- 
phate of  lime  from  the  blood.  But  when  they  come  to 
be  broken,  their  texture  or  tissue  inflames  in  the  frac- 
tured place  ;  and  then  it  changes  its  tastes,  if  I  may  so 
express  myself ;  and,  lo  and  behold,  extracts  from  the 
blood  that  which  forms  certain  little  fleshy  shoots,  which 
unite  together  from  the  two  sides  of  the  fracture,  and  so 
mend  the  broken  bone.  Here  is  one  exception  to  the 
rule. 

Again,  in  certain  diseases,  the  bones  suddenly  quarrel 
with  the  phosphate  of  lime  ;  they  will  not  hear  of  it 
any  longer,  they  will  not  accept  a  fresh  supply  ;  and  as 
the  old  wears  out  by  degrees,  by  reason  of  the  continual 
destruction  of  which  I  spoke  the  other  day,  the  bones 
become  more  and  more  enfeebled,  and  soon  can  no  longer 
support  the  body.  A  second  exception  this. 

Finally,  when  old  age  comes  on,  the  bones  end  by 
being  so  much  encumbered  with  phosphate  of  lime,  that 
they  have  no  room  to  admit  the  fresh  supply  which  keeps 
coming  to  them  in  the  blood.  What  becomes  of  it  then? 
It  goes  to  seek  its  fortune  elsewhere ;  and  there  are 


126  THE   NOURISHMENT   OF   THE   ORGANS. 

charitable  souls,  who  forgetting  their  instinctive  antipa- 
thies, consent  to  give  it  hospitality,  though  much  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  poor  old  man  himself,  who  is  no  longer 
served  so  well  as  formerly,  by  the  incautious  servants 
who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  thus  fatally  beguiled  ; 
but  no  one  consults  him:  It  is  the  arteries  especially, 
and  sometimes  the  muscles,  which  take  this  great  liberty, 
and  it  is  not  unusual  among  old  people  to  meet  with 
these  fairly  ossified — that  is  to  say,  changed  into,  bone, 
thanks  to  the  phosphate  of  lime  with  which  they  have 
consented  to  burden  themselves.  This  is  a  third  excep- 
tion, and  I  will  spare  you  any  others. 

What  may  we  infer  from  all  this,  my  dear  cliild? 
Well,  two  things.  First,  that  we  know  nothing  at  all 
about  the  whole  affair  ;  a  fact  which  at  once  places  us 
on  a  footing  with  the  most  learned  philosophers  in  the 
world.  Secondly,  that  our  body  is  a  perpetual  miracle ;  a 
miracle  which  eats  and  drinks  and  walks,  and  which  we 
must  not  look  down  upon  for  so  doing  :  for  God  dwells 
therein.  I  should  have  to  come  back  to  this  at  every 
turn,  if  I  wanted  to  fathom  everything  I  have  to  tell  you 
about.  Each  tip  of  hair  which  you  grow,  is  an  incom- 
prehensible prodigy  which  would  puzzle  us  for  ever,  if 
we  did  not  call  to  our  aid  those  eternal  laws  which  have 
made  us  what  we  are,  and  to  which  it  is  very  just  our 
spirits  should  submit,  since  we  could  not  exist  for  one 
second  were  they  to  cease  from  making  themselves 
obeyed  in  our  bodies. 

Reflect  on  this,  my  dear  little  pupil.  Young  as  you 
may  be,  you  can  already  understand  from  it,  that  there 
is  above  you  something  which  demands  your  respect. 
The  good  God,  to  whom  your  mother  makes  you  pray 
every  night,  on  your  knees,  with  folded  hands,  is  not  so 
far  off  as  you  might  perhaps  suppose.  He  is  not  a  being 


THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  THE  ORGANS.       127 

of  the  fancy,  secluded  in  the  depths  of  that  unknown 
space  which  men  call  Heaven,  in  order  to  give  it  a  name. 
If  His  all-powerful  hand  reaches  thus  into  the  innermost 
recesses  of  your  body,  His  voice  speaks  also  in  your 
heart,  and  to  what  it  says  you  must  listen. 


LETTER    XYI. 

THE   ORGANS. 

CONTRARY  to  my  custom,  my  dear  child,  I  made  use, 
in  the  last  chapter,  of  a  new  word,  without  giving  an 
explanation  of  it. 

I  spoke  to  you  of  our  organs,  and  we  have  not  yet  as- 
certained what  an  organ  is. 

You  probably  knew  what  I  meant,  because  it  is  a  word 
which  is  used  in  conversation  and  pretty  well  understood 
by  everybody.  But  I  am  bent  upon  giving  you  a  more 
exact  idea  of  it,  for  the  trouble  will  be  well  bestowed. 
If  I  did  not  do  this  at  once  it  was  because  there  is  a 
good  deal  to  tell  about,  and  that  would  have  carried  mo 
too  far  away  from  my  subject. 

Organ,  comes  from  the  Greek  word  organon,  and 
means  instrument.  It  was  used  particularly  to  signify 
instruments  of  music,  so  much  so  that  our  word  "  organ77 
comes  from  it.  Our  bodily  organs  then,  are  instruments, 
or  tools  if  you  like  it  better,  which  have  been  given  to 
us,  wherewith  to  perform  all  the  acts  of  life ;  and  as 
there  is  not  one  part  of  the  body  which  is  not  of  use  to 
us  for  some  purpose  or  other,  our  body  is,  in  point  of 
fact,  from  head  to  foot  a  compound  of  organs.  Thus  the 
hand  is  the  tool  which  we  make  use  of  to  lay  hold  of 
any  tiling — so  an  organ  •  the  eye  is  the  instrument  of 
sight — so  an  organ  •  the  heart  is  the  machine  which 
causes  the  blood  to  circulate — so  an  organ •  the  liver 
(128) 


THE   ORGANS.  129 

i'abricatcs  the  bile — it  is  an  organ  therefore  ;  the  bones 
are  the  framework  which  support  the  weight  of  the  body 
— so  organs  ;  the  muscles  are  the  power  which  sets  the 
bones  in  movement — organs  also,  therefore  ;  the  skin  is 
the  armor  which  protects  them — so  an  organ :  in  fact 
everything  within  us  is  an  organ.  If  there  was  any 
corner  of  our  body  which  was  not  an  organ,  it  would  be 
useless  to  us,  and  we  should  not,  therefore,  have  received 
it,  because  God  makes  nothing  without  a  use. 

Here  lies  the  secret  of  that  great  miracle  which  is 
called  life.  I  do  not  know  whether  you  will  be  able  to 
understand  me  thoroughly,  but  open  your  ears,  as.  if  some 
one  was  going  to  explain  addition  to  you ;  this  is  not 
more  difficult. 

Life  is  in  reality  the  total  of  an  addition  sum.  Each 
one  of  our  organs  is  a  distinct  being  which  has  its  par- 
ticular nature  and  special  office  ;  its  separate  life  conse- 
quently ;  and  our  individual  life  is  the  sum  total  of  all 
these  lesser  lives,  independent  one  of  the  other,  but  which 
nevertheless  blend  together  by  a  mysterious  combination, 
into  one  common  life,  which  is  everywhere  and  nowhere 
at  the  same  time.  It  follows  from  this,  that  the  more 
organs  a  being  has,  the  greater  is  the  sum  total ;  the 
more,  consequently,  is  life  developed  in  him.  Remember 
this  when  we  begin  to  study  life  in  the  lower  animals. 
In  proportion  as  you  find  the  number  of  organs  diminish, 
you  will  find  life  diminishing  in  power,  until  we  arrive 
at  beings  who  have,  as  it  were,  only  one  organ  apparent, 
and  whose  life  is  so  insignificant,  that  we  have  some  dif- 
ficulty in  giving  an  account  of  it,  and  are  saying  the 
utmost  that  can  be  said  in  calling  it  life  at  all. 

But  this  comparison  of  life  to  the  total  of  an  addition 
sum,  is  too  dry ;  and,  although  it  has  its  appropriate  side, 
yet  it  might  give  you  a  false  idea  of  life  j  which  is  what 
6* 


130  THE   ORGANS. 

always  happens  when  one  tries  to  solve  inscrutable  ques- 
tions and  hidden  mysteries  by  a  matter-of-fact  illus- 
tration. 

Let  us  try  for  something  more  to  the  purpose. 

I  told  you  that  the  Greek  word  organon  was  applied 
especially  to  instruments  of  music.  Well,  let  us  consider 
our  organs  as  so  many  musical  instruments.  You  have, 
probably,  sometimes  been  at  a  concert.  Each  of  the 
instruments  in  the  orchestra  performs  its  own  part,  does 
it  not  ?  The  little  flute  pipes  through  all  its  holes  •  the 
double-bass,  pours  thunder  from  its  chords :  the  violin 
sighs  with  his  ;  the  cymbals  clash ;  the  Chinese  bells 
dance  to  their  own  tinkling  ;  all  go  at  it  in  their  own 
fashion,  each  independently  of  the  other.  And  yet,  when 
the  orchestra  is  in  good  tune  together,  and  well  played, 
you  hear  but  one  sound ;  and  to  you  the  result  of  all 
these  various  noises,  each  of  which  would  have  no  mean- 
ing alone,  is  music  composed  by  some  great  artist  whom 
you  do  not  see.  It  is  no  longer  a  flute,  a  double-bass,  or 
a  violin  which  you  hear ;  it  is  a  symphony  of  Beetho- 
ven's, an  oratorio  of  Haydn's,  or  Mozart's  overture  to 
Don  Juan. 

Life  is  just  like  this.  All  the  instruments  are  playing 
together,  and  there  is  but  one  music  ;  music  written  by 
God. 

But  wait !  when  I  say  life  is  just  like  this,  let  us  come 
to  an  understanding.  Life  is  something  like  it,  that  is 
all,  for-  as  to  telling  you  what  life  is,  I  shall  not  attempt 
it.  I  know  nothing  about  it,  do  you  see,  though  that  is 
a  painful  confession  to  have  to  make  to  a  pupil ;  but  in 
this  case  it  does  not  distress  me,  and  you  are  welcome  to 
hunt  the  world  through  for  a  master,  who  in  this  matter 
does  know  anything.  I  could  make  a  hundred  other 
comparisons,  but  they  would  all  fail  in  some  point  or 


THE   ORGANS.  131 

other.  Shall  I  tell  you  where  this  one  fails  ?  In  an 
orchestra  there  is  always  a  musician  by  the  side  of  the 
instrument.  Now  with  us  we  see  the  instrument  well 
enough,  but  we  cannot  see  the  musician. 

You  are  inclined  to  ask  me,  perhaps,  why  I  am  wast- 
ing so  much  paper  to-day  in  talking  to  you  about  organs, 
instead  of  going  on  tranquilly  with  our  little  history  of 
the  circulation.  But  I  told  you  just  now  that  the  secret 
of  life  lies  in  the  organs,  and  before  entering  upon  the 
history  of  life,  I  ought  to  have  begun  with  them.  It  is 
there  all  the  books  begin  which  treat  of  the  subject  we 
are  studying  together,  and  if  you  had  one  in  your  hands 
at  this  moment,  it  would  teach  you  that  all  creatures 
whatsoever  are  divided  into  those  which  have  organs  and 
those  which  have  none — that  is,  into  organic  and  inor- 
ganic beings*  (in  stands  here  for  not,  as  incomplete 
means  not  complete). 

This  is,  in  fact,  the  starting  point  for  the  study  of 
nature,  and  there  are  many  other  things  besides  which  I 
ought  to  have  told  you  before  I  began.  But  we  went 
straight  ahead,  without  looking  at  what  we  were  leav- 
ing behind,  satisfied  with  turning  aside  from  time  to 
time  to  pay  our  debts. 

And  while  I  am  making  my  confession,  I  ought  to  tell 
you  all.    You  would  probably  only  have  listened  to  me  ^ 
with  half  an  ear,  if  I  had  begun  at  the  beginning.    There 
is  a  proverb  which  says — "  The  appetite  comes  with  eat- 

*  A  lump  of  iron  is  the  same  throughout.  Each  of  its  parts  has 
the  same  properties  and  the  same  uses.  It  has  no  organs,  it  is  an 
inorganic  being.  A  rose  tree  has  flowers,  which  are  differently  made 
from  its  leaves,  and  serve  a  different  use :  a  root  which  sucks  up  the 
precious  food  of  the  earth ;  a  bark  which  is  of  a  different  nature  from 
the  wood,  and  serves  a  different  purpose.  It  has  organs ;  it  is  an 
organic  being :  all  animals  and  vegetables  are  organic  beings. 


132  THE   ORGANS. 

ing."  I  do  not  advise  you  to  follow  this  proverb  too 
closely  at  dinner,  for  it  might  mislead  you  sadly.  But 
it  is  always  true  when  applied  to  learning ;  it  is  what 
one  knows  already  that  gives  one  a  taste  for  learning 
more.  If  I  have  been  making  you  bite  at  the  organs 
to-day,  which  is  rather  a  tough  morsel,  it  was  because 
I  fancied  that  your  appetite  had  begun  to  come.  Was 
I  wrong  ? 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  blood  which  nourishes  the 
organs. 


LETTER  XVII. 

AETERIAL  AND  VENOUS  BLOOD. 

IT  is  at  the  extremity  of  the  capillary  arteries,  as  we 
have  said,  that  the  incomprehensible  prodigy  of  the 
nourishment  of  our  organs  is  accomplished.  This  done, 
the  next  thing  is  for  the  blood  to  return  to  its  starting- 
point  ;  and  here  recommence  those  infinitesimally  minute 
wonders  of  which  we  have  already  spoken.  Close  upon 
the  capillary  arteries  follow  the  capillary  veins,  equally 
fine  and  imperceptible  as  the  others.  These  take  pos- 
session of  the  blood  everywhere  at  once,  without  allow- 
ing it  a  moment's  respite,  and  it  is  thenceforth  on  its 
road  of  return,  travelling  back  again  to  the  heart. 

Where  do  the  veins  begin?  where  do  the  arteries 
end  ?  No  one  can  say  precisely,  since  the  last  ramifica- 
tions of  each  elude  the  eye  of  man,  however  much  it  may 
be  aided  by  the  admirable  instruments  which  his  genius 
has  invented.  Nevertheless,  although  no  one  has  ever 
ascertained  the  fact  by  sight,  there  is  one  thing  I  can 
tell  you — namely,  that  our  minute  veins  are  a  continu- 
ation of  our  minute  arteries,  and  that  it  is  the  same  canal 
which  as  it  lengthens  out  turns  from  an  artery  into  a  vein, 
without  any  interruption ;  the  substances  destined  for 
the  nourishment  of  the  organs  passing  through  its  walls, 
as  moisture  passes  through  our  skin  when  we  perspire. 

But  if  nobody  has  seen  this,  say  you,  how  can  they 
know  it  for  a  fact  ? 

(133) 


134         ARTERIAL  AND  VENOUS  BLOOD. 

Let  me  explain.  In  man,  and  in  the  animals  which 
come  nearest  to  man  in  structure,  it  has  never  been  seen  ; 
but  it  has  been  seen  elsewhere.  This  requires  a  little 
explanation,  and  you  will  not  regret  my  giving  it  here- 
after. It  has  its  interest,  I  assure  you. 

When  you  put  your  hand  on  your  throat,  how  does  it 
feel  to  you  ?  Warm,  does  it  not  ?  And  when  you  take 
hold  of  a  kitten  or  a  bird,  how  do  they  feel  ?  warm  in  the 
same  way.  Now,  then,  can  you  tell  me  whence  comes 
this  warmth  ?  But  to  save  time  I  will  answer  the  ques- 
tion myself.  It  comes  from  their  and  your  blood,  which 
is  itself  warm,  and  we  shall  soon  see  why.  You  have 
no  idea  of  all  the  curious  facts  wrapt  up  in  that  little 
phrase,  "  You  are  warm-blooded  f  your  blood  is  warm. 
But  it  has  not  got  warm  of  itself ;  bear  that  well  in 
mind. 

Now  if  you  touch  a  frog,  a  lizard,  or  a  fish,  how  do 
they  feel  to  you  ?  Cold,  of  course,  you  answer.  But  I 
ask  why  ?  A  question  you  will  answer  in  the  same  way 
as  the  other.  Because  their  blood  is  cold,  they  are 
"  cold-blooded." 

Precisely  ;  and  while  you  are  about  it  you  may  add 
that,  if  their  blood  be  cold,  it  is  because  it  has  not  been 
warmed  as  yours  is.  Do  not  be  impatient,  we  shall  make 
all  this  clear  at  the  proper  time  and  place. 

Now  in  the  cold-blooded  animals,  such  as  serpents, 
frogs,  tortoises,  lizards,  fishes,  and  others,  the  blood  cir- 
culates as  it  does  in  us,  and  what  is  more,  it  does  so, 
thanks  to  a  machinery  very  similar  to  our  own.  But,  as 
you  may  imagine,  a  machine  which  produces  warmth 
must  be  constructed  in  a  more  perfect  manner  than  a 
machine  which  produces  no  warmth  ;  and  to  speak  truth, 
without  flattering  you,  there  is  a  little  difference  between 
you  and  a  frog,  and  it  seems  natural  enough  that  the 


ARTERIAL  AND  VENOUS  BLOOD.  135 

body  of  a  frog  should  be  more  clumsy  in  structure  than 
yours. 

It  is  the  old  story  of  the  poor  man  being  not  so  well 
lodged  as  the  rich ;  but  putting  aside  rich  and  poor,  who 
are  all  human  beings  alike,  let  us  take  one  of  those  lovely 
dolls  who  walk,  and  move  their  arms  and  head,  and  say 
papa !  and  mamma !  and  compare  it  with  a  cheap  bazaar 
doll  which  you  can  get  for  a  penny.  Both  are  made,  in 
the  main,  in  one  way.  Each  has  two  arms,  two  legs,  a 
mouth,  a  nose,  eyes,  &c. ;  but  what  a  difference  in  the 
details  of  the  two !  and  what  infinitely  more  pains  have 
been  bestowed  on  one  than  on  the  other ! 

Well,  cold-blooded  animals  are,  so  to  speak,  penny 
doll  animals,  by  comparison  with  ourselves.  Like  us 
they  have  arteries  and  veins,  but  there  is  not  near  so 
much  workmanship  in  them  ;  and  that  marvellous  deli- 
cacy of  the  capillary  extremities,  which  in  man  and  in 
the  warm-blooded  animals  drives  the  close  observer  to 
despair,  does  not  exist  to  trouble  us  in  these  others.  It 
is  true  that  with  the  naked  eye  we  are  still  unable  to  see 
everything,  even  in  them  ;  but  with  the  help  of  the  mi- 
croscope the  whole  is  Jaid  open  to  us — the  extremities  of 
the  arteries  and  the  extremities  of  the  veins  ;  and  it  was 
here  that  what  I  was  telling  you  of,  just  now,  was  ob- 
served and  discovered, — namely,  that  the  end  of  the 
artery  changes  into  a  vein,  without  any  interruption  in 
the  tube.  It  was  these  very  observations  upon  fishes  and 
frogs,  which  eventually  gained  the  day  in  favor  of 
Harvey's  ideas  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  at  which 
the  learned  men  of  his  own  age  had  laughed  so  much. 
He  was  dead  by  that  time  it  is  true,  as  has  happened  but 
too  often  in  such  cases,  but  do  not  let  us  pity  him  too 
much !  He  who  has  had  the  rare  good-fortune  to  lay 
hold  of  a  new  truth,  and  launch  it  into  the  world,  is  suf- 


136         ARTERIAL  AND  VENOUS  BLOOD. 

ficiently  recompensed  in  advance.  If  he  also  craves  after 
the  flattering  voice  of  man's  approbation,  and  the  toylike 
pleasure  of  personal  triumph,  he  is  after  all  but  a  child, 
unworthy  of  the  great  par.t  God  has  given  him  the 
privilege  of  playing. 

A  child,  did  I  say  ?  Then  how  rude  you  must  have 
thought  me,  dear  child  !  And  as  a  punishment,  you  are 
perhaps  going  to  remind  me  that  I  have  once  more  fallen 
into  my  old  bad  habit  of  wandering  away  from  my 
subject.  Never  mind,  I  am  going  to  return  to  it  at 
once. 

How  can  one  distinguish — you  will  ask  me — an  artery 
from  a  vein,  so  as  to  be  able  to  determine  which  is  a  vein 
and  which  an  artery  ? 

In  many  ways,  I  reply.  First  of  all,  an  artery,  as  I 
told  you  lately,  is  composed  of  three  coats,  of  which  the 
principal,  i.e.  the  inner  one,  is  tough  and  elastic,  whereby 
the  artery  is  enabled  to  force  the  blood  forward  in  its 
turn,  but  which  is  also  the  reason  of  arterial  cuts  being 
so  dangerous  ;  for  in  such  cases  the  wounded  tube  re- 
mains wide  open  ;  being  held  so  by  the  stiffer  inner 
coat ;  and  thus  the  blood  is  allowed  to  run  out  indefi- 
nitely. Now  this  inner  coat  is  wanting  in  the  veins, 
whose  walls  sink  in  together  when  a  cut  is  made  in  them, 
so  that  it  is  much  easier  to  stop  the  flow  of  the  blood  in 
them. 

Furthermore,  the  veins  are  furnished  inside  at  inter- 
vals with  little  doors,  similar  to  those  we  noticed  at  the 
entrance  of  the  auricles  and  ventricles  of  the  heart.  You 
remember  those  important  valvelets,  on  which  depends 
so  much  of  the  mechanism  ;  which  permit  the  blood  to 
pass  in  one  direction,  but  will  not  allow  it  to  return 
back  in  the  other? — well,  the  little  doors  of  the  veins, 
which  are  also  called  valvelets,  do  exactly  the  same 


ARTERIAL   AND   VENOUS   BLOOD.  137 

work.  They  open  in  the  direction  of  the  heart,  to  allow 
the  blood  to  pass  on,  but  it  finds  them  fast  closed  if  it 
wants  to  go  back  ;  so  that  as  soon  as  it  has  forced  one 
passage  there  is  no  longer  any  hope  of  its  return,  and 
thus  by  degrees  it  gets  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  heart 
without  any  possibility  of  escape.  There  is  nothing 
similar  to  this  in  the  arteries,  which  the  blood  traverses 
in  a  single  bound  from  the  impetus  it  receives  from  the 
heart. 

Finally — and  this  is  most  important — the  blood  which 
is  found  in  the  veins  is  no  longer  the  same  as  that  which 
fills  the  heart. 

No  longer  the  same  ?  you  exclaim — have  we  then  two 
sorts  of  blood  in  our  bodies  ?  Most  certainly,  my  dear 
child  ;  but  you  would  not  have  suspected  it ;  for  when 
you  accidentally  prick  or  cut  yourself,  or  when  your 
nose  bleeds,  it  is  always  the  same  sort  of  blood  that 
comes  out — that  fine  red  liquid  which  everybody  knows 
so  well  by  sight.  This  is  because  the  blood  flows  at 
once  from  the  small  arteries  and  small  veins,  and  what 
you  see  is  a  mixture  of  the  two.  The  same  mixture  is- 
sues from  all  wounds,  whether  small  or  great,  and  on 
this  account  people  are  unanimous  in  declaring  that 
blood  is  red ;  a  statement  which  is  not  true  of  either 
arterial  or  venous  blood,  separately.  The  last  is  black, 
as  you  might  convince  yourself  if  you  had  courage 
enough,  and  should  happen  to  be  in  the  room  with  any 
one  who  was  going  to  be  bled, — a  rare  event,  happily, 
in  these  enlightened  days. 

In  such  a  case  it  is  always  a  vein  which  is  opened,  the 
reason  of  which  you  will  understand,  after  what  I  said 
of  the  danger  of  cutting  the  arteries.  You  would  there, 
fore  see  a  reddish  black  jet  of  liquid  spout  from  under 
the  lancet ;  much  blacker  than  red,  however — that  is 


138        ARTERIAL  AND  VENOUS  BLOOD. 

venous  blood.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  an  artery  has 
been  accidentally  cut,  what  comes  out  is  quite  different. 
It  is  a  rosy,  frothy  fluid,  almost  like  milk  and  carmine 
dissolved  in  it,  which  has  been  whipped  up  with  a  stick  ; 
this  is  called  arterial  blood. 

Nothing  is  more  simple,  as  you  perceive,  than  to  dis- 
tinguish an  artery  from  a  vein  ;  you  have  only  to  ascer- 
tain what  is  inside  of  it.  When  the  blood  goes  out  to 
our  organs  to  nourish  them,  it  is  arterial ;  when  it  is  re- 
turning back  after  having  nourished  them,  it  has  become 
venous.  But  what — you  will  ask — is  it  going  to  do 
now  at  the  heart,  towards  which  it  is  on  its  road  ?  It 
is  going  to  seek  there  a  fresh  impetus  which  shall  send 
it  once  more  into  the  lungs,  where  it  will  again  become 
arterial,  i.  e.  and  once  more  capable  of  affording  nourish- 
ment to  the  organs.  Therein  lies  the  whole  secret,  and 
the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  the  CIRCULATION. 

This  is  easily  said,  dear  child  ;  but  suppose  that  you 
do  not  comprehend  it  ?  Well,  you  need  not  be  ashamed. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  comprehending  it  until  one  has 
learnt  what  RESPIRATION  is — so  here  we  are  stopped 
short. 

To-morrow,  then,  when  we  will  begin  with  the  study 
of  this  third  part  of  the  History  of  Nutrition  ;  and  if  the 
first  two  have  amused  you,  I  feel  pretty  sure  you  will 
not  find  this  last  one  dull. 


LETTER  XVIII. 

ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE. 

WHEN  we  have  been  laboring  very  hard,  my  dear 
child,  and  want  to  rest  for  a  minute,  we  say,  Let  us  take 
breath  ;  because  breathing  is  an  action  which  takes  place 
of  itself,  requiring  neither  effort  nor  attention  on  our 
part. 

But,  if  it  takes  place  of  itself,  it  does  not  explain  itself ; 
consequently,  when  I  say  to  you,  Now,  let  us  take  breath, 
this  is  not  a  signal  for  my  having  a  rest,  for  I  have  un- 
dertaken to  explain  Respiration  to  you. 

If  you  were  a  German,  I  would  remind  you  of  what  so 
often  happens  when  you  put  a  fork  into  a  dish  of  sour- 
krout.  You  want  to  lay  hold  of  a  little  bit  merely,  but 
the  strips  of  cabbage-leaf  are  twisted  one  within  the 
other,  and  hang  together  in  spite  of  you,  so  that  without 
intending  it  you  get  hold  of  a  whole  plateful  at  once. 

Now  this  Respiration  affair  is  something  like  the  sour- 
krout  story — begging  your  pardon  for  the  comparison. 
I  should  have  liked  to  give  you  only  a  small  plateful 
—a  child's  plateful — of  it ;  but  I  feel  the  explanations 
coming,  hanging  one  upon  the  other  ;  and,  whether  I  will 
or  no,  I  must  treat  you  like  a  grown-up  person,  and  we 
must  give  up  for  once  the  nice  little  doll's  dinners  with 
which  we  began. 

In  my  opinion,  you  will  lose  nothing  by  the  change  if 
you  will  but  pay  attention ;  for  about  that  soft  little 

(139) 


140  ATMOSPHERIC  PRESSURE. 

breath  of  yours,  which  is  always  coming  and  going  over 
your  pretty  lips,  there  are  many  more  things  to  be  learnt 
than  you  have  heard  of  yet.  As  I  said  just  now,  you 
will  find  you  have  got  hold  of  a  plateful  all  at  once.  A 
good  appetite  to  you ! 

To  prevent  confusion  we  will  divide  the  subject  into 
two  parts.  I  shall  explain  to  you  first,  How  we  breathe  ? 
— a  very  curious  question,  as  you  will  see.  And  after- 
wards we  will  examine,  Why  we  breathe? — which  is  still 
more  interesting. 

First,  I  must  tell  you  that  air  is  heavy,  and  very  heavy 
too  ;  a  thousand  times  more  so  than  you  may  suppose. 
The  air  we  breathe,  through  which  we  move  backwards 
and  forwards,  that  air  is  something,  remember,  although 
we  do  not  see  it ;  and  when  there  is  a  wind,  that  is  to 
say,  when  the  air  is  in  motion,  like  a  stream  of  water 
running  down  a  hill,  we  are  forced  to  acknowledge  its 
being  something,  for  we  see  it  throw  down  the  largest 
trees  and  carry  along  the  biggest  ships.  But  without 
going  so  far  out  of  the  way  for  examples,  try — you  who 
run  so  well — to  run  for  two  minutes  against  a  strong 
wind  :  and  then  you  shall  tell  me  whether  the  air  is  some- 
thing or  nothing.  But  if  it  be  something  it  must  have 
weight,  for  all  substances  have  ;  paper  as  well  as  lead  ; 
with  this  sole  difference,  that  the  weight  of  lead  is 
greater  in  proportion  to  its  size  than  that  of  paper. 
Now  a  sheet  of  paper  is  very  light,  is  it  not  ?  and  you 
would  be  puzzled  perhaps  to  say  what  it  weighs.  But 
many  sheets  of  paper  placed  one  upon  the  other,  end  by 
forming  a  thick  book  which  has  its  undeniable  weight ; 
and  if  some  one  were  to  heap  upon  your  head  a  pile  of 
large  books,  like  those  you  see  on  your  papa's  shelves, 
the  end  might  be  that  you  would  be  crushed  to  death. 

In  the  same  way,  a  small  amount  of  air  is  by  no  means 


ATMOSPHERIC  PRESSURE.  141 

heavy  ;  but  you  can  conceive  that  a  great  quantity  of  it 
gathered  together  may  end  by  weighing  a  great  deal. 
Now  get  well  into  your  head  the  fact,  that  we,  here,  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  are  at  the  bottom  of  an  immense 
mass  of  air,  extending  to  somewhere  about  forty  or  fifty 
miles  above  our  heads.  Let  us  say  forty  to  make  more 
sure,  for  learned  men  have  not  yet  been  able  to  calcu- 
late the  precise  height  to  a  nicety ;  and  for  my  own 
part,  I  think  we  have  done  wonders  to  get  so  near  the 
mark  even  as  this.  But  can  you  picture  to  yourself  the 
distance  which  forty  miles  high  really  is  ?  I  will  help 
you  to  form  some  idea. 

One  mile  contains  5,280  feet,  and  your  papa  is  six  feet 
high.  One  mile  high  would  therefore  be  880  times  as 
high  as  your  papa,  But  this  is  a  mere  nothing — only 
one  mile's  height.  In  forty  miles  there  would  be  no  less 
than  211,200  feet ;  and  setting  papas  aside,  of  whom  it 
would  take  35,200,  one  on  the  top  of  the  other,  to  go  so 
far  into  the  sky,  let  us  think  of  the  height  of  the  tallest 
buildings  you  know ;  church  and  cathedral  towers  for 
instance.  Now  the  towers  of  many  parish  churches  are 
150  feet  high ;  the  towers  of  York  Minister  not  300. 
At  that  rate  it  would  take  1,408  ordinary  parish  church- 
towers,  or  upwards  of  704  York  Minster  towers,  piled 
one  above  the  other,  to  reach  to  the  end  of  the  forty 
miles  of  air  above  our  heads.  I  leave  yon  to  judge  what 
would  be  the  weight  of  a  mass  of  paper  piled  up  as  high 
as  that.  You  may  safely  grant  then,  that  this  mass  or 
pile,  or  if  you  like  it  better,  this  column  of  air  (for 
that  is  the  proper  expression),  must  be  of  considerable 
weight ;  as  is  still  further  made  certain  by  the  fact  of 
its  having  been  weighed,  so  that  I  can  even  name  the 
weight  to  you  if  you  wish  to  hear  it.  Bear  in  mind  too, 
that  the  weight  of  a  column  of  air  will  be  in  proportion 


142  ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE. 

to  its  superficial  extent — to  its  "breadth  and  width,  that  is  ; 
for,  as  you  may  suppose,  a  column  as  large  in  extent  as 
one  of  the  towers  of  York  Minster  will  weigh  a  good 
deal  more  than  one  the  size  of  a  single  brick. 

But  wait ;  here  is  a  book  on  the  table  which  will 
serve  me  for  a  measure,  and  as  you  will  probably  find 
the  same  on  your  mamma's  table,  you  can  follow  my 
measurement.  -  It  is  a  French  Grammar.  The  back  is 
seven  inches  long  and  four  and  a  quarter  wide.  That 
is,  there  are  four  and  a  quarter  rows,  each  seven  inches 
long.  In  other  words,  the  back  contains  nearly — and 
let  us  call  it  quite,  for  convenience'  sake — thirty  inches 
side  by  side.  Thirty  square  inches  as  it  is  called. 
Measure  your  mamma's  copy  and  you  will  see.  Now, 
can  you  guess  the  weight  of  the  column  of  air  forty 
miles  high  which  this  volume  supports  ?  Upwards  of 
four  cwt. ;  450  Ibs.,  that  is  to  say.  If  you  want  to  be 
very  exact,  here  is  the  rule.  Air  presses  on  all  bodies 
at  the  rate  of  fifteen  pounds  to  every  square  inch  ;  so 
now  you  can  make  the  calculation  for  yourself. 

But  I  suspect  you  had  no  idea  you  were  so  strong  ; 
for  I  see  you  tossing  up  the  book,  heavily  laden  as  it  is, 
like  a  feather. 

Comfort  yourself.  There  is  no  magic  in  the  matter. 
If  a  very  strong  man  were  to  push  you  on  one  side, 
could  you  resist  him  ?  Certainly  not.  But  if  another 
man  of  equal  strength  were  to  push  you  at  the  same 
time  on  the  other  side,  what  would  happen  ?  Well,  you 
would  remain  quietly  in  your  place,  without  troubling 
yourself  more  about  one  than  the  other,  the  two  forces 
mutually  destroying  each  other.  And  this  is  the  case 
here.  While  the  air  above  your  book  is  weighing  down 
upon  it  with  a  force  of  450  Ibs.,  the  air  below  it  pressss 
against  it  underneath  with  an  equal  weight,  and  this 


ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE.  143 

destroys  the  effect  of  the  other.  From  450  Ibs.  take 
450  Ibs.,  and  nothing  remains.  Your  grammar  has 
nothing  to  carry  after  all,  and  you  may  toss  it  about  as 
you  please,  without  deserving  much  credit  for  the  effort. 

"  What  are  you  telling  me  ?"  you  inquire.  "  If  I  put 
a  stone  on  the  top  of  my  head,  I  can  feel  its  weight 
easily  enough  ;  but  if  I  put  my  hand  on  the  top  of  the 
stone  I  no  longer  feel  anything.  How  can  the  air  below 
the  stone  press  against  it  ?  And  talking  of  columns — 
how  pleasant  it  would  be,  for  instance,  if  the  people  who 
go  up  the  Monument  were  to  have  the  weight  of  it  on 
their  heads  when  they  get  to  the  top  1" 

Well  said,  little  one.  And  your  objection  reminds 
me  of  an  argument  which  distracted  my  head  as  a  lad, 
when  I  first  heard  the  pressure  of  air  explained  by  a 
good  fellow  who  did  not  trouble  himself  to  be  quite  as 
exact  as  you  and  I  are  in  our  discussions.  I  was  told 
that  the  surface  of  the  body,  or  the  skin  of  a  large  man, 
measured  sixteen  feet  square,  which  is  equal  to  the  sur- 
face of  a  table  four  £eet  long  and  four  broad.  Now,  you 
know -that  in  four  feet  there  are  forty-eight  inches,  and 
on  the  surface  of  the  table  are  forty-eight  rows,  with 
forty-eight  inches  in  each,  or  2,304  square  inches ;  so 
that  a  man's  surface  is  2,304  square  inches,  and  the 
weight  his  body  supports  is  34,560  Ibs.,  or  upwards  of 
fifteen  tons — always  at  the  rate  of  fifteen  pounds  to 
every  square  inch,  you  understand.  Now,  I  was  con- 
stantly asking  myself  how  it  happened  that  in  entering 
a  house  one  never  seemed  to  get  rid  of  this  almost 
fabulous  weight,  since  the  roof  of  the  house  must  nat- 
urally interpose  itself  between  the  air-column  of  forty 
miles  high  and  the  man  who  would  then  only  have  some 
few  feet  of  air  above  his  head.  The  roof  would  sup- 
port the  rest,  that  was  clear.  From  whence,  then,  came 

^    ^*^ 
Of  TOT 

fUJUVIKSITTl 


144  ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE. 

the  34,560  Ibs.  which  seemed  to  weigh  as  heavily  as  be- 
fore ;  since,  whether  on  the  threshold  of  the  door,  while 
still  under  shelter  of  the  roof,  or  two  steps  outside  in 
the  open  air,  under  the  tremendous  column  forty  miles 
high,  one  never  felt  a  bit  lighter,  not  even  to  the  extent 
of  the  weight  of  a  single  sheet  of  paper  ?  This  was  a 
difficulty  from  which  I  could  never  extricate  myself. 

I  found  out  the  answer  to  the  riddle  afterwards,  and 
a  very  simple  one  it  is. 

Air  does  not,  in  point  of  fact,  iveigh  down  like  a  solid 
fifty  pounds'  weight,  which  has  no  impulse  but  to  de- 
scend, and  has  nothing  to  do  with  anything  above  it. 
It  presses  against  rather,  like  a  spring,  which,  having 
been  compressed,  tries  to  resume  its  natural  position 
with  a  force  equal  to  that  which  holds  it  back.  Ask 
some  one  to  show  you  the  spring  of  a  watch,  and  you 
will  understand  this  better.  Each  atom  of  air  is  a 
spring  of  matchless  elasticity,  which  nothing  can  break, 
wliich  never  wears  out,  which  one  can  always  compress, 
if  one  employs  force  sufficient,  and  which  is  always 
ready  to  expand  indefinitely,  in  proportion  as  the  com- 
pressing power  is  withdrawn. 

Now,  consider  the  column  of  air  outside  the  door, 
where  there  is  a  pile  of  such  springs  forty  miles  high. 
The  lower  ones  have  to  bear  up  all  their  comrades, 
which  press  upon  them  with  their  united  weight, 
and  these  make  desperate  efforts  to  repulse  the  tre- 
mendous pressure,  and  to  spread  out  in  their  turn. 
They  endeavor  to  escape  in  every  direction — to  the 
right,  to  the  left,  above,  below  ;  but  caught  between 
the  earth,  which  will  not  give  way,  and  the  compact 
mass  of  all  the  columns  of  air  which  surrounds  the  earth 
in  every  direction,  and  of  which  the  lower  part  is  equal- 
ly compressed  everywhere,  they  struggle  unceasingly, 


ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE.  145 

but  in  vain  ;  indefatigable,  but  powerless.  You  live  in 
the  midst  of  those  little  wrestlers,  and  naturally  bear 
the  punishment  of  the  injury  done  to  them.  They  press 
against  you  as  against  every  thing  else — before,  behind, 
on  all  sides — with  a  force  equal  to  that  with  which  they 
are  themselves  compressed,  or  I  would  say,  equal  to  the 
weight  by  which  they  are  so  horribly  squeezed  and  con- 
tracted :  so  that,  in  fact,  you  bear  this  weight  not  only 
on  your  head  and  shoulders,  as  you  might  at  first  sup- 
pose, but  also  all  along  your  body  and  limbs,  under  your 
arms,  under  your  chin,  in  the  hollow  of  your  nostrils, 
everywhere. 

Now  we  will  suppose  you  to  enter  the  house  ;  and 
what  do  you  find  there  ?  Outer  air,  which  on  its  part 
has  got  in  by  the  door,  the  window,  and  every  little 
crevice  in  the  wall.  The  column  outside  the  roof  no 
longer  presses  upon  it,  but  what  is  the  gain  of  that  ? 

It  was  compressed  when  it  got  in,  and  the  little  springs 
will  struggle  as  a  matter  of  course,  quite  as  much  on  this 
side  of  the  door  as  on  the  other.  The  protecting  roof 
has  so  little  power  that  were  it  not  itself  protected  by 
the  air  outside,  the  pressure  of  which  keeps  it  in  its  place, 
the  air  within  would  shiver  it  into  a.  thousand  fragments 
in  its  efforts  to  get  loose. 

You  laugh  ;  but  wait  till  I  explain  myself  further.  I 
will  take  the  case  of  a  miniature  house  to  make  the  mat- 
ter pleasanter  to  you  ;  one  fifteen  feet  long,  fifteen  feet 
wide,  and  with  a  flat  roof,  the  most  economical  plan  as 
regards  space.  Fifteen  feet  are  five  yards,  and  as  the 
multiplication  table  tells  us  that  five  times  five  make 
twenty-five,  our  roof  will  in  this  case  be  twenty-five 
square  yards  (i.  e.  225  square  feet)  in  superficial  extent, 
or  area  ;  it  is  not  much,  and  you  will  find  few  as  small. 

Would  you  like  to  calculate  the  force  with  which  the 
7 


146  ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE. 

millions  and  thousand  millions  of  little  spring  imps  im- 
prisoned under  that  poor  unfortunate  roof  would  press 
against  it  ?  We  settled  before  that  the  quantity  of  them 
brought  to  bear  upon  a  square  inch  had  the  power  to  push 
at  the  rate  of  fifteen  pounds.  Were  they  to  push  against 
a  square  yard  (a  surface  1296  times  greater  than  the  square 
inch)  it  would  therefore  be  19,440  Ibs.  This  being  so  for 
one  square  yard,  calculate  for  twenty-five  square  yards, 
and  you  will  have  the  amount  of  pressure  against  our 
roof — viz.  486,000  Ibs — merely  that !  And  now  tell  me 
what  cottage  roof  in  the  world  was  ever  built  so  as  to 
be  able  to  stand  against  such  a  weight  ? 

Perhaps  though,  you  can  scarcely  appreciate  the  amount 
of  heaviness,  486,000  Ibs.  Well,  486,000  Ibs.  is  nearly 
217  tons  ;  and  one  of  those  railway  trucks  that  you  see 
laden  with  coals  at  the  stations  can  carry,  perhaps,  from 
eight  to  ten  tons,  without  breaking  down.  Say  ten  tons 
as  an  outside  estimate,  and  then  think  of  piling  the  con- 
tents of  twenty-one  such  trucks  on  your  roof,  and  yet 
you  would  still  be  short  of  the  weight  of  air  which  is 
bearing  down  upon  it.  I  need  scarcely  say  now  that 
were  you  to  take  away  the  air  from  within  the  roof,  the 
air  without  would  smash  both  it  and  the  whole  cottage 
flat,  as  a  giant  at  a  fair  strikes  an  egg  flat  with  one 
blow  of  his  fist.  To  show  you  how  in  another  way  : 
take  a  moderate  sized  column  or  pillar,  such  as  you 
see  sometimes  in  a  nobleman's  grounds,  of  about  the 
weight  of  the  twenty-one  tons,  and  set  it  up  like  a  chim- 
ney on  the  roof  of  our  cottage,  then  walk  away  to  a  little 
distance  and  watch  what  will  happen  1 

There,  little  Miss  Laugher  !  have  you  at  last  learned 
to  value  the  weight  of  the  air,  or  atmospheric  pressure  as 
it  is  more  properly  called  ;  since  it  is  the  Hfcrce  with 
which  the  atmosphere  presses  against  rather  than  weighs 


ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE.  147 

upon  everything  on  the  surface  of  the  globe  ?  It  is  no 
joke,  as  you  perceive,  and  it  affords  plenty  of  subject 
for  reflection.  I  have  still  to  prove  to  you  that  I  have 
not  been  making  fun  of  you  with  my  calculations,  and 
that  the  weight  of  air  upon  a  square  inch  is  really  what 
I  have  said — viz.,  fifteen  pounds. 

Now,  there  is  a  very  simple  way  by  which  we  might 
get  to  know  your  strength,  and  tell  its  amount  in  figures, 
if  one  chose  ;  namely,  by  putting  a  weight  on  your  arms 
— a  heap  of  books,  if  you  please — and  keep  adding  and 
adding  to  it,  until  those  poor  little  arms  were  unable  to 
bear  any  more.  Then  weighing  what  they  had  borne, 
whether  we  should  find  it  to  be  ten  or  thirty  pounds — I 
cannot  guess  how  much  it  might  be  at  this  distance- 
one  might  safely  say,  without  fear  of  mistake,  "The 
strength  of  this  young  lady  is  equal  to  ten,  twenty,  or 
thirty  pounds " — in  other  words,  "  she  represents  a 
weight  of  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  pounds  "  and  by  a  simi- 
lar plan  people  have  ascertained  the  strength  of  the 
air — that  is,  the  weight  which  it  represents.  They  have 
weighed  what  it  is  capable  of  carrying. 

I  told  you  lately  that  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth 
was  covered  by  an  immense  army  of  little  imps — other- 
wise called  little  air-springs,  which,  compressed  by  the 
giant  mass  of  their  comrades  above,  all  of  whom  they 
have  to  carry  on  their  backs,  are  always  trying  to  pro- 
tect themselves,  by  pushing  back  everything  which  comes 
across  them.  Imagine  the  bottom  of  a  well.  Gtar  imps 
are  permanently  installed  there  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  face  to  face  with  the  water  they  push  against  it, 
each  one  doing  his  best,  on  all  points  at  once.  As  the 
pressure  is  equal  everywhere  therefore,  and  always  the 
same,  there  are  no  signs  of  it  to  be  seen. 

Now  insert  in  the  water  the  end  of  a  tube  closed  below 


148  ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE. 

by  a  cork  T\  hich  exactly  fits  the  interior,  but  which  can 
be  moved  up  and  down  in  the  tube  by  means  of  a  bar  of 
iron  or  wood  which  runs  through  it.  This  is  called  a 
piston,  I  may  as  well  tell  you  as  we  go  on. 

When  the  piston  rises  in  the  tube,  it  drives  before  it, 
as  it  goes,  the  air  which  was  already  there  ;  and  which 
cannot  slip  away  down  the  sides  because  the  piston  fits 
so  closely  to  them  all  the  way  along.  The  result  of  this 
is,  that  just  underneath  the  piston  there  is  a  place  in  the 
water  to  which  the  air  cannot  reach,  and  at  that  place 
the  water  has  no  pressure  upon  it  at  all. 

Now  see  what  happens.  Pressed  upon  heavily  by  the 
air  in  every  other  part  and  place,  like  a  mouse  hunted 
by  a  cat,  who  finds  at  last  a  hole  through  which  to  es- 
cape, the  poor  water  darts  at  this  and  ascends  the  tube 
close  after  the  piston. 

So  far  so  good  ;  but  if  the  tube  is  very  long,  and  the 
piston  rises  rather  high  ; — at  thirty-three  or  thirty-four 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  water  it  has  to  continue  its 
ascent  alone.  The  water  parts  company,  stopping  quietly 
behind,  half-way  up  the  tube. 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  ?"  you  will  ask. 

It  means  that  the  force  which  presses  on  the  well- 
water  all  round  the  tube,  and  thus  drives  it  up,  has  done 
all  it  can,  and  that  our  little  air-imps  refuse  to  supply 
any  more.  The  water  which  rises  in  the  tube  has  a 
weight  of  its  own  of  course,  and  with  this  weight  it  pres- 
ses, as  ft  is  fair  it  should,  on  the  water  below.  In  pro- 
portion as  the  piston  rises,  the  column  of  water  which 
follows  it  gets  bigger  and  bigger,  and  naturally  its 
weight  increases  at  the  same  time.  At  last  there  comes 
a  moment  when  this  weight  becomes  such  that  its  pres- 
sure on  the  water  below  is  equal  to  that  with  which  the 
air-imps  are  pressing  on  the  water  in  the  well.  Thence- 


ATMOSPHERIC   PRESSURE.  149 

forth  they  may  push  as  they  please  ;  no  more  water  will 
go  up.  They  are  in  the  same  position  now  that  they 
were  before,  when  their  comrades  (afterwards  driven  out 
by  the  piston)  were  pressing  upon  the  same  point,  which 
had  only  a  moment's  freedom  ;  and  this  water  column  of 
thirty-three  or  thirty-four  feet  holds  them  in  check,  to 
exactly  the  same  extent  as  the  gay  fellows  whose  place 
it  has  taken. 

Nothing  is  easier  now  than  to  calculate,  even  to  a  few 
grains  almost,  the  force  of  the  pressure  of  air.  One 
can  get  at  the  weight  of  water,  thank  goodness !  and 
it  nas  been  ascertained  that  our  water-column  will  weigh 
fifteen  pounds  if  the  tube  is  a  square  inch  in  size.  You 
>will  comprehend  after  this  that  it  might  be  any  size  you 
may  please  to  imagine,  without  there  being  the  slightest 
alteration  in  the  height  of  the  column.  The  larger  it 
is,  the  heavier  will  be  the  column  of  water  on  the  one 
hand  ;  but  on  the  other,  the  greater  will  be  the  number 
of  air-imps  turned  out ;  so  it  comes  to  the  same  thing 
in  the.  end. 

If  you  should  feel  any  doubt  about  the  correctness  of 
this  reasoning,  you  have  only  to  try  the  experiment  over 
again,  in  a  well,  filled  with  mercury  for  instance.  Ask 
to  be  shown  some  pure  mercury,  which  is  also  called 
Quicksilver,  because  one  wants  to  express  melted  silver, 
apt  to  be  constantly  on  the  move  ;  it  is  often  to  be  met 
with  in  houses.  Mercury  weighs  thirteen  and  a  half 
times  more  than  water  :  according  to  our  calculations, 
therefore,  it  would  take  thirteen  and  a  half  times  less 
of  it  than  of  water  to  bring  our  little  air-imps  to  rea- 
son. And  this  is  just  what  you  will  find  happens  ;  you 
will  see  the  column  of  mercury  stop  short  exactly  at  the 
moment  when  it  has  attained  the  orthodox  weight  of 


150  ATMOSPHERIC  PRESSURE. 

fifteen  pounds ;  that  is  to  say,  at  a  height  of  twenty, 
eight  inches. 

,  On  the  other  hand,  take  some  ether.  You  know  that 
delicate  spirit,  which  smells  so  strong,  which  makes  your 
hand  feel  cold  if  it  is  put  upon  it,  and  which  we  give 
to  sick  people  to  inhale.  Ether  weighs  one-quarter  less 
than  water.  In  a  well  of  ether  you  would  therefore  see 
something  quite  different,  and  your  column  would  rise 
without  "being  asked,  to  something  like  forty-three  feet, 
exactly  up  to  the  point  of  weighing — like  the  others — 
fifteen  pounds  to  every  square  inch.  Air  will  not  be  re- 
placed with  less. 

That,  then,  is  the  measure  of  its  strength,  or  our  scales 
are  deceitful. 


LETTER  XIX. 

THE  ACTION  OP  THE  LUNGS. 

I  HOPE  I  have  told  you  enough,  my  dear  child,  to 
enable  you  fully  to  estimate  the  force  with  which  air 
presses  upon  everything  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and 
consequently  upon  our  own  bodies  among  the  rest. 

If  you  understand  this,  nothing  is  easier  than  to  un- 
derstand how  air  comes  and  goes  in  our  lungs. 

When  the  cook  wants  to  light  her  fire  with  two  or 
three  hot  coals,  what  does  she  do  ? 

She  takes  the  bellows  and  blows  it,  does  she  not  ? 

But  if  she  has  no  bellows  at  hand,  what  does  she  do  ? 
You  answer  at  once,  she  blows  it  herself  with  all  the 
strength  of  her  lungs. 

By  which  it  would  seem — does  it  not? — that  we  are  a 
sort  of  living  bellows,  being  able,  in  case  of  necessity, 
to  act  as  a  substitute  for  the  wood  and  leather  ones  of 
common  use.  And  if  we  really  possess  the  power  of 
doing  the  work  of  a  bellows,  may  not  this  be  because 
we  have  within  us  some  little  machine  of  the  -nature  of 
a  bellows  ? 

Exactly ;  and  this  fact  gives  me  the  opportunity  of 
making  you  understand  the  action  of  the  lungs  by  ex- 
plaining that  of  the  bellows,  which  is  in  everybody's 
hands,  but  which  three-fourths  of  the  people  use,  without 
troubling  themselves  to  inquire  how  it  is  made  or  acts. 

A  bellows,  as  you  know,  is  composed  of  two  pieces  of 

(151) 


152         THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. 

board,  capable  of  being  separated  and  brought  together 
again  at  will,  and  united  by  a  piece  of  leather  so  shaped 
and  arranged  that  it  doubles  up  when  the  boards  close, 
the  intermediate  space  forming  a  firmly-closed  box,  the 
size  of  which  increases  or  diminishes  at  every  movement 
of  the  boards. 

We  take  the  bellows  down  to  use  it,  and  there  are  the 
boards,  lying  flat  upon  each  other,  the  box  between 
them  quite  small.     Is  there  anything  inside,  do  you- 
think? 

"  Nothing,"  you  answer  ;  "  the  bellows  is  empty." 

Do  you  think  so  really,  my  child  ?  Do  you  think  a 
tumbler  is  empty,  then,  when  you  have  drunk  out  its 
contents  ;  and  that  jelly  pots  are  empty  when  all  the 
jelly  is  eaten  ?  There  are  not  so  many  empty  things  in 
the  world,  I  assure  you,  as  you  suppose.  You  forget  the 
air — that  monster  who  is  always  wanting  to  stretch 
himself  out,  and  pushes  against  everything  he  .meets. 
He  is  an  unceremonious  gentleman,  who  takes  possession 
of  every  vacant  place  ;  as  fast  as  you  put  a  spoonful  on 
your  plate,  he  takes  up  the  room  of  the  jelly  which  has 
been  removed,  and  at  each  mouthful  you  swallow,  he 
slips  into  the  place  of  the  water  which  goes  away.  When 
you  think  the  glass  and  pot  are  empty,  they  are,  in 
reality,  full  of  air.  You  cannot  see  it ;  but  it  is  there, 
you  may  rely  upon  it. 

There  is  air,  then,  in  the  bellows-box,  because  there  is 
air  in  every  place  where  there  is  nothing  else  to  dispute 
possession  with  it.  The  quantity  is  small  in  this  case, 
no  doubt,  because  the  box  is  small  and  cannot  hold 
much. 

But  now,  look  L I  separate  the  boards,  and  the  box, 
which  was  small,  becomes  large.  For  once,  then,  here 
is  a  box  which  must  be  partially  empty  ;  for  it  has  just, 


THE  ACTION  OP  THE  LUNGS.         153 

as  if  by  magic,  made  a  space  in  itself  in  which  positively 
there  cannot  be  anything,  since  there  was  nothing  there 
beforehand. 

Ay !  but  look  down  at  the  centre  of  the  upper  board. 
You  see  a  little  hole  there,  do  you  not,  and  below  the 
little  hole  a  small  piece  of  leather,  which  seems  to  close 
it  up  ?  That  is  a  valve,  one  of  those  doors,  such  as  we 
noticed  before  in  the  heart,  and  such  as  are  to  be  found, 
moreover,  in  most  houses,  which  let  people  through  on 
one  side  but  not  on  the  other.  This  one  opens  when  it 
is  pushed  from  without,  but  lets  nothing  out  which  has 
once  got  in.  Now,  the  air  outside,  as  I  said  before,  is 
always  pushing  against  everything.  He  pushes  as  a 
matter  of  course,  therefore,  against  the  valve,  and  as 
there  is  nothing  behind  it  to  resist  the  pressure,  in  pro- 
portion as  room  is  made  inside  the  box,  he  enters  and 
fills  it  with  himself. 

But  presently  some  one  begins  to  close  the  bellows, 
and  he  finds  himself  caught  between  the  boards  ;  on 
which  these  invite  him  to  begone,  with  the  same  sort  of 
politeness  displayed  by  the  police,  when  the  hour  of  de- 
parture comes  in  a  place  of  public  exhibition ;  when, 
i.e.,  they  spread  out  on  all  sides,  and  force  the  crowd 
before  them  till  they  have  found  the  road  to  the  door. 
But  the  air  cannot  get  back  by  the  way  it  came  in,  the 
door  being  shut.  As,  however,  it  must  go  out  some- 
where, whether  it  likes  it  or  not,  it  passes  through  the 
tube  at  the  end  of  the  box  (the  nozzle  of  the  bellows), 
and  comes  out  thence  with  a  rush  upon  the  fire. 

When  it  is  once  gone  the  bellows  can  be  distended 
again,  and  the  process  be  repeated  as  before  indefinitely. 

And  this  is  just  what  goes  on  inside  ourselves.  Your 
chest,  my  child,  is  a  box  which  expands  and  contracts 
alternately;  making  a  place  for  the  air  by  the  first 


154         THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. 

effort,  and  then  driving  it  out  by  the  second.  It  is  nei- 
ther more  nor  less  than  a  bellows,  but  of  a  simpler  con- 
struction than  that  used  by  the  cook.  The  exit  pipe 
serves  also  for  a  door  of  entrance,  and  there  is  but  one 
board  instead  of  two. 

The  exit  pipe  is  the  larynx,  of  which  we  spoke  before, 
when  we  were  talking  of  swallowing  the  wrong  way, 
and  which  communicates  with  the  air  outside,  through 
the  nose  and  mouth  at  the  same  time,  allowing  us  to 
breathe  through  either  one  or  the  other  as  we  like. 

As  to  the  board,  I  said  a  few  words  about  it  when  1 
was  describing  the  liver.  It  is  the  diaphragm  —  that 
separating  partition — that  floor  which  is  placed  between 
the  two  stories  or  divisions  of  the  body — the  belly  and 
the  chest. 

But  here  .especially  the  infinite  superiority  of  the 
works  of  God  over  the  miserable  inventions  of  man 
comes  out  in  all  its  grandeur. 

A  bellows  which  was  to  have  the  honor  of  keeping 
up  within  us  that  miraculous  fire — the  pre-eminently 
sacred  fire — which  we  call  Life,  required  something 
more  than  a  common  board  for  its  foundation.  And 
accordingly  this,  of  which  I  am  now  going  to  give  you 
a  detailed  history,  is  as  marvellous  as  it  is  admirable. 
I  fancy  that  when  you  have  read  my  account,  you  will 
no  longer  turn  up  your  nose  at  the  vile  word  diaphragm. 

Let  us  first  take  a  peep  at  the  construction  of  the 
bellows. 

On  each  side  of  the  vertebral  column,  from  the  neck  to 
the  loins,  spring  twelve  long  bones,  one  below  the  other, 
bent  in  the  form  of  bows ;  these  are  called  the  ribs. 
The  first  seven  pairs  of  ribs  rest,  and  as  it  were,  unite, 
in  front,  upon  a  bone  called  the  sternum,  which  you  can 
trace  with  your  finger  down  to  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  at 


THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS.          155 

which  point  the  finger  sinks  in,  for  there  is  no  more 
sternum,  and  the  last  five  ribs  on  each  side  no  longer 
unite  with  those  of  the  opposite  one.  For  which  reason 
they  are  called  false  ribs.  On  the  other  hand  they  are 
joined  to  each  other  at  the  ends  by  means  of  a  strip  or 
band  of  a  substance  sufficiently  strong,  but  at  the  same 
time  flexible,  and  somewhat  elastic,  which  is  called  carti- 
lage or  gristle.  The  next  time  you  see  a  roasting  piece 
of  veal  on  the  table,  look  well  at  it,  and  you  will  see  at 
the  end  a  white  substance  which  crackles  under  your 
teeth  ;  that  is  gristle. 

This  forms  the  framework  of  our  bellows,  which  you 
may  picture  to  yourself  as  a  kind  of  cage,  widening  to- 
wards the  bottom  and  going  to  a  point  at  the  top,  for 
the  arches  formed  by  the  upper  ribs  are  smaller  than  the 
others.  The  whole  terminates  in  a  sort  of  ring,  through 
which  pass,  together,  the  oesophagus  and  the  trachea. 

The  space  between  the  ribs  is  occupied  by  muscles 
which  reach  from  one  to  the  other,  and  the  whole  frame- 
work or  cage  is  shut  in  below  by  the  diaphragm,  that 
marvellous  board  whose  history  I  have  promised  to 
relate. 

The  diaphragm,  as  I  told  you  some  time  ago,  is  a 
large  muscle,  thin  and  flat,  stretched  like  a  cloth  between 
the  chest  and  the  abdomen.  It  is  fastened  by  an  infinity 
of  little  threads  called,  fibres,  to  the  lower  edge  of  the 
cage  I  have  just  been  describing,  and  it  looks  at  first 
sight  as  if  it  must  be  incapable  of  moving,  since  it  is 
fixed  in  one  invariable  manner  all  round  the  body. 

It  moves  nevertheless,  but  not  in  the  same  way  as  the 
boards  of  our  bellows. 

Ask  your  brother  to  hold  two  corners  of  your  pocket- 
handkerchief  ;  take  hold  of  the  other  two  yourself,  and 
turn  the  handkerchief  BO  as  to  face  the  wind.  The  four 


156          THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. 

corners  remain  in  their  place,  do  they  not  ?  but  the  mid- 
dle, inflated  by  the  wind,  curves  and  swells  out  in  front 
like  a  ship's  sail,  which  itself  is  only  an  immense  hand 
kerchief  after  all.  Then  draw  the  handkerchief  tightly 
towards  you,  each  to  your  own  side,  and  it  will  recover 
itself  and  become  flat  again.  Loosen  it  a  little  and  it 
will  curve  and  swell  out  again  in  the  middle,  and  this 
manoeuvre  you  can  go  through  as  often  as  you  choose. 

Which  very  manoeuvre  the  diaphragm  is  continually 
performing,  of  and  by  itself. 

In  its  natural  position  it  bulges  upwards  in  the  middle, 
like  a  cloth  swollen  out  by  the  wind,  and  thus  occupies 
a  portion  of  the  chest  at  the  expense  of  the  lungs.  When 
air  has  to  be  admitted,  its  fibres  tighten  and  bring  it  flat 
again,  as  you  and  your  brother  brought  the  handkerchief 
flat  just  now  by  tightening  it. 

The  whole  space  previously  occupied  by  the  arch  of  the 
diaphragm  is  thus  given  up  to  the  lungs,  which,  being 
elastic,  instantly  stretch  themselves  out  to  it ;  while  air, 
running  in  through  the  nose  and  mouth,  fills  up  in  pro- 
portion the  empty  place  (vacuum)  created  by  the  exten- 
sion of  the  lungs,  exactly  as  in  the  case  of  the  bel- 
lows. 

But  soon  the  fibres  of  the  diaphragm  relax.  It  rises 
up  again  into  its  old  position,  driving  back  the  lungs  as 
it  does  so  ;  and  the  air  finding  there  is  now  no  room  for 
it,  goes  out  by  the  same  way  the  other  came  in.  I  say 
the  other,  observe,  because  the  air  that  goes  out  is  no 
longer  the  same  as  when  it  came  in ;  and  this  is  the 
secret  of  why  we  breathe;  while  the  up  and  down  move- 
ment of  the  diaphragm  is  the  explanation  of  hoiu  we 
breathe. 

As  you  perceive,  then,  the  mechanism  of  these  bellows 
of  ours,  is  of  the  most  simple,  and  consequently  of  the 


THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS.          157 

most  ingenious  character,  and  leaves  far  behind  it  any- 
thing we  have  ever  imagined. 

Are  you  disappointed  ?  Do  you  feel  inclined  to  ex- 
claim, "  Is  this  all  ?"  to  ask  where  are  the  wonders  I 
promised  you  ?  to  protest  that  I  may  talk  as  I  please 
about  the  inflating  and  flattening  of  a  pocket-handker- 
chief? you  can  see  nothing  so  marvellous  in  the  matter  ; 
nothing  worth  making  your  mouth  water  for. 

A  little  patience,  Mademoiselle!  Hitherto  we  have 
talked  only  of  the  machine  ;  but  there  is  a  goblin  inside 
it,  and  our  fairy  tale  is  going  to  begin  again. 

There  are  in  some  families  certain  old  servants  who 
belong  to  the  house,  more,  it  may  be  said,  than  their  mas- 
ters, in  some  ways.  They  educate  the  children,  and  they 
serve  them  till  death  ;  they  live  for  them  alone,  and 
know  so  well  what  they  have  to  do,  both  by  day  and 
night,  that  there  is  no  need  to  give  them  any  orderSc 
Nay,  not  only  is  it  unnecessary  to  give  them  directions — 
it  is  for  the  most  part  labor  in  vain.  They  are  so  com- 
pletely at  home  in  their  business,  that  they  will' go  no- 
body's way  but  their  own.  If  you  wish  them  to  alter 
their  habits  they  may  obey  you  for  an  instant,  but  it  is 
only  to  return  into  the  old  groove  directly  after ;  for 
they  know  better  than  you  do  what  you  want. 

I  was  very  little  when  I  first  read  in  the  story-books 
of  my  day,  some  bitter  complaints  of  the  disappearance 
of  this  race  of  olxl-fashioned  servants  of  the  good  old 
times.  And  you  very  likely  may  have  seen  it  said  that 
they  are  no  longer  to  be  met  with.  Yet  there  will  al- 
ways be  some,  depend  upon  it,  in  families,  who  know 
how  to  make  and  to  keep  them.  Good  old  times  or  not, 
they  have  never  been  found  in  any  other  but  these  cases. 

Still,  /have  just  such  a  one  as  I  have  described — even 
I  who  am  talking  to  you — and  so  has  your  mamma  ;  and 


158          THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. 

what  is  more,  you  have  one  yourself  j  and  what  is  more 
still,  everybody  else  has  one.  This  servant  of  the  good 
old  times,  who  will  never  disappear  (and  this  is  more 
than  one  can  promise  of  any  other)  is  the  Diaphragm  ! 

When  you  came  into  the  world,  my  dear  child,  and 
were  merely  a  poor  little  lump  of  flesh,  without  strength, 
intelligence,  or  will ;  incapable  of  giving  any  orders 
whatever  to  those  organs  of  yours,  of  whose  existence 
you  were  not  even  aware,  your  diaphragm  quietly  began 
his  duties,  without  leave  or  inquiry  from  you,  and  with 
your  first  breath  your  life  began.  Since  which  he  has 
always  gone  on,  whether  you  attended  to  him  or  not,  and 
his  last  effort  will  be  your  last  sigh. 

When  you  go  to  sleep,  careless  of  all  that  is  to  happen, 
until  you  awake  again,  that  servant  of  yours,  indefatiga- 
ble at  his  post,  labors  for  you  still,  and  the  light  breath 
which  half  opens  your  rosy  little  lips  as  it  passes  through 
them ;  that  light  breath  which  your  happy  mother 
watches  with  such  pleasure,  is  his  work.  Midnight 
strikes — one  o'clock — two  ;  all  around  you  are  buried 
in  sleep — but  he  is  awake  still.  Were  it  otherwise- 
were  he  to  go  to  sleep  when  you  do,  you  would  never 
awake  again ! 

This  protector  of  each  instant,  this  faithful  guardian 
of  your  life,  is,  nevertheless,  subject  to  you  as  a  servant 
to  his  master.  Attend  to  him,  and  he  will  obey  your 
orders.  You  can  make  him  go  at  a  great  pace,  or  slowly, 
as  you  choose ;  or  stop  him  altogether,  if  the  fancy  takes 
you  to  do  so  :  but  this  not  for  long.  The  servant  of  the 
good  old  times  is  obstinate  in  the  performance  of  his  du- 
ties. He  will  yield  to  you  in  trifles  ;  but  do  not  try  to 
force  him  over  serious  matters.  I  have  read  somewhere 
of  a  desperate  young  fellow,  chained  down  in  a  dungeon, 
who  killed  himself  by  holding  his  breath  ;  but  I  never 


THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS.          159 

quite  believed  it.  Mr.  Diaphragm  would  not  allow  any 
one  to  carry  rebellion  so  far  as  that. 

But  we  have  not  finished  yet,  and  you  do  not  yet  know 
how  appropriate  is  the  comparison  I  am  making. 

Should  any  misfortune,  any  grief,  any  trifling  annoy- 
ance even,  befall  his  master,  a  good  servant  suffers  with 
him,  and  as  much  as  he  does  ;  sometimes  even  more. 
Occasionally  the  master  is  comforted,  while  he  remains 
still  disturbed. 

"  And  the  diaphragm  ?"  you  ask. 

The  diaphragm  does  precisely  the  same,  my  dear  child. 
Yours,  especially,  shares  in  all  your  griefs  to  such  an 
extent  that,  truth  to  say,  he  is  not  always  quite  reason- 
able. The  other  day  when  your  mamma  did  not  want 
to  take  you  into  the  country  with  her,  he  was  so  sorry 
for  you  that  he  went  into  perfect  convulsions,  and  you 
sobbed  and  sobbed  till  she  was  obliged  to  say,  "  Come, 
then,  you  naughty  child  ;"  whereupon  you  embraced  your 
mamma,  and  were  quite  happy  again,  while  he  remained 
still  unappeased,  and  your  poor  little  chest  was  shaken 
more  than  once  afterwards  by  his  last  convulsions. 

Sobbing,  you  must  know,  is  merely  a  convulsion — a 
great  shake  of  the  diaphragm — which  is  the  reason  of 
its  causing  such  a  heaving  of  the  chest. 

It  is  the  same  with  respect  to  joy.  The  joy  of  the 
master  makes  the  servant  dance,  and  so  the  diaphragm 
too  !  Its  little  internal  jumps  are,  then,  what  we  call 
laughter — a  thing  you  are  well  acquainted  with.  Put 
your  hand  on  your  chest  next  time  you  laugh  (and  I  hope 
it  will  be  soon)  and  you  will  feel  how  it  dances — thanks 
to  the  diaphragm  which  jumps  for  joy  whenever  it  finds 
you  in  good  humor. 

Please  to  observe  further,  that  nothing  of  all  this  is 
done  to  order.  He  starts  of  himself,  poor  fellow,  with- 


160          THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. 

out  waiting  to  ask  if  you  will  ever  know  anything  about 
it ;  and,  in  truth,  you  have  known  -nothing  about  it  up 
to  the  present  moment. 

What  say  you  to  the  diaphragm  now,  my  child  ?  Does 
not  the  very  name  please  you  ?  You  scarcely  expected 
to  find  there — under  your  lungs — so  good  a  servant,  one 
so  attached  to  your  person,  so  strongly  resembling  in  all 
points  the  best  specimens  we  know  among  men.  And 
still  we  have  not  done.  I  have  reserved  as  a  finale  for 
you  a  new  point  of  resemblance  which  will  make  you 
open  your  eyes  very  wide  indeed. 

The  old  servant  is  sometimes  cross  and  grumbling. 
If  anything  is  going  against  his  grain  in  the  house  he  has 
no  scruple  in  saying  so  ;  and  his  mode  of  speaking  is 
sometimes  rather  rude.  Nor  is  it  of  any  use  to  get  im- 
patient and  impose  silence  on  him ;  he  will  listen  to 
nothing — it  is  his  privilege.  But  let  some  unforeseen  ac- 
cident happen  to  his  master,  let  him  see  him  deeply 
affected,  and  in  a  moment  all  his  anger  is  over.  He  sets 
himself  silently  to  work  again,  recalled  to  order  twenty 
times  sooner  by  his  master's  emotion  than  by  his  utmost 
impatience. 

You  ask  what  I  am  coming  to  now  ?  My  deai  child, 
what  I  have  just  told  you  is  the  history  of  the  hiccup — 
the  history  of  the  hiccup,  neither  more  nor  less. 

I  must  first  tell  you,  however,  that  the  diaphragm 
keeps  up  intimate  relations  with  his  neighbor  below — 
the  stomach.  Every  time  he  rises  in  the  breast  the 
stomach  rises  behind  him  ;  and  not  only  the  stomach, 
but  also  its  companions,  the  intestines.  All  the  officials 
employed  in  the  business  of  digestion  travel  regularly 
with  him  ;  coming  down  as  well  as  going  up  in  company. 
Put  your  hand  upon  your  abdomen  and  breathe  strongly 


THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS.         161 

and  you  will  feel  the  rebound  of  all  the  movements  of 
the  diaphragm. 

Now,  when  matters  are  going  on  wrongly  inside,  when 
too  much  work  has  been  imposed  on  the  officials,  or  work 
they  dislike,  or  else  when  they  have  been  disturbed  in 
their  labors,  it  will  sometimes  happen  that  the  diaphragm 
takes  part  with  his  comrades  in  the  abdomen.  He  gets 
angry  then,  and  shakes  his  master,  who  cannot  help  him- 
self a  bit.  You  must  be  very  well  acquainted  with  these 
attacks,  which  are  very  fatiguing  when  they  last  long. 
One  begs  pardon  and  resists  him  in  vain  ;  he  does  as  he 
pleases,  without  stopping  to  listen,  turning  everything 
upside  down ;  and  do  you  know  the  only  efficacious  plan 
for  calming  him  at  once  ?  It  was  a  constant  source  of 
wonder  to  me  when  I  was  little.  A  sudden  fright,  a 
start  unexpectedly  caused  by  a  friendly  hand  slipping 
secretly  behind,  and  laying  hold  of  one,  was  all-sufficient ; 
disarmed  by  the  agitation  you  have  undergone,  the 
naughty,  stubborn  muscle  forgives  you,  and  you  are 
cured. 

Having  dwelt  so  long  on  the  truly  wonderful  resem- 
blance between  the  proceedings  of  two  sorts  of  beings, 
whom  no  one  that  I  know. of  ever  thought  of  comparing 
together  before,  I  will  now,  my  dear  child,  give  you  the 
key  to  all  these  comparisons,  which  seem  so  whimsical  at 
first,  but  are  so  striking  in  reality,  and  which  come  to 
my  pen  of  their  own  accord,  as  it  were,  in  the  midst  of 
the  explanations  I  have  undertaken  to  give  you.  Many 
people  who  would  not  themselves  care  for  them,  will  de- 
clare that  they  are  too  hard  for  a  little  girl  to  follow. 
But  for  my  own  part,  I  find  that  the  eye  can  take  in  a 
mountain  as  easily  as  a  fly,  and  that  it  is  not  more  diffi- 
cult to  lay  hold  of  great  ideas  than  of  little  ones.  It  is 


162         THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. 

short-sighted  people,  not  children,  who  cannot  see  far 
before  them.  Who  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  ? 
God,  your  catechism  tells  you.  The  same  God  made 
both  ;  did  he  not  ?  We  do  not  acknowledge  two.  And 
if  it  be  the  self-same  God  who  made  everything,  the  hand 
of  the  universal  Maker  will  be  found  everywhere  ;  and 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  portion  of  His  work  the 
same  mind  will  manifest  itself  under  a  thousand  different 
forms.  Not  only,  either,  is  each  man  separately,  one  by 
one,  the  work  of  God.  The  whole  human  race,  taken  in 
the  mass,  is  also  His  creation  ;  and  the  laws  by  which 
human  society — that  great  body  of  the  human  race — 
seeks  to  regulate  itself  for  the  preservation  of  its  exist- 
ence, are  undoubtedly  the  same  as  those  which  overruled 
the  organization  of  our  individual  bodies.  It  is  not  very 
astonishing,  then,  if  we  find,  in  the  life  of  human  society 
around  us,  details  corresponding  with  each  detail  of  the 
life  of  the  human  body,  or,  at  any  rate,  closely  resem- 
bling them.  What  would  really  be  astonishing,  would 
be  that  mankind  as  a  whole  should  be  differently  consti- 
tuted from  man  as  an  individual,  and  that  human  society 
should  have  other  appointed  conditions  of  well-being 
than  those  of  each  of  its  members. 

So,  while  I  am  on  the  subject,  I  should  like  to  advise 
those  who  wish  to  apply  themselves  to  what  is  called 
politics — that  is  to  say,  social  life — to  begin  their 
studies  of  the  body  social,  by  studying  the  body  human, 
first.  They  will  learn  more  from  it  than  from  the 
newspapers ! 

But  you  have  nothing  to  do  with  all  this.  For  the 
present,  take  notice  of  one  thing  only ;  viz.,  that  the 
hand  of  the  same  God  has  passed  over  everything,  and 
that  there  is  neither  much  presumption  nor  much  merit 
in  tracing  points  of  comparison  between  the  different 


THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS.          163 

parts  of  His  work.  These  comparisons  are  not  a  mere 
play  of  the  mind ;  they  really  exist  ready  made  in  the 
very  foundations  of  things. 

Now  let  us  come  down  a  little  from  these  heights  and 
return  to  our  friends  the  lungs.  I  have  not  spoken 
about  them  for  some  time,  and  I  have  not  yet  told  you 
how  they  are  constructed. 

I  wish  I  could  show  you  some,  but  the  cook  will  do  so, 
if  you  would  like  to  see  them.  The  lights  with  which 
she  feeds  the  cat  and  the  dog  are  the  lungs  of  some 
animal. 

Take  up  a  piece  in  your  hand,  and  you  will  find  you 
have  got  hold  of  something  light  (cooks  have  not  given 
it  its  name  without  a  reason),  which  is  also  soft,  sinks 
under  your  finger  if  you  press  it,  and  rises  again  after- 
wards like  a  sponge.  In  fact,  the  lung,  like  the  sponge, 
is  composed  of  an  infinity  of  minute  cells,  whose  elastic 
sides  can  be  contracted  or  expanded  at  will.  They  are 
like  so  many  little  chambers,  into  every  one  of  which 
blood  and  air  keep  running  hastily,  each  on  its  own 
side,  to  bid  good  day  to  each  other,  touch  hands,  and 
then  hurry  out  as  briskly  as  they  came  in.  Whether  the 
bit  of  lights  the  cat  is  eating,  comes  from  an  ox,  a  pig, 
or  a  sheep,  you  may  look  at  it  with  perfect  confidence  ; 
your  own  lung  is  precisely  like  it.  You  would  see 
nothing  different,  could  you  look  into  your  own  chest. 

So  much  for  the  substance  of  the  lungs.  As  to  SHAPE, 
imagine  two  large,  elongated  packets,  flat  inside,  descend- 
ing right  and  left,  inside  the  breast,  and  bearing  the 
heart,  suspended  between  the  two,  in  the  middle.  The 
extremity  of  each  packet  descends  below  the  heart,  and 
it  is  in  the  interval  which  separates  them  that  the  arch 
of  the  diaphragm  performs  its  up  and  down  movement. 

I  have  already  said  that  air  reaches  the  lungs  through 


164:  THE   ACTION   OF   THE   LUNGS. 

the  larynx.  The  larynx  (of  which  we  shall  speak  fur- 
ther when  I  have  explained  another  curious  thing  very 
valuable  to  little  girls — the  voice),  the  larynx  is  a  tube 
composed  of  five  pieces  of  cartilage  (you  know  now 
what  cartilage  or  gristle  is),  the  firm  resisting  texture 
of  which  keeps  it  always  open.  After  these  five  pieces 
of  cartilage,-  come  others,  and  the  tube  is  continued  ;  but 
it  then  takes  the  name  of  the  trachea  ;  the  larynx  and 
trachea  constituting  the  windpipe. 

At  its  entrance  into  the  chest,  the  trachea  divides 
into  two  branches,  which  are  called  bronchial  tubes, 
and  which  run,  one  into  the  right  lung,  the  other  into 
the  left.  You  sometimes  hear  people  talking  about 
bronchitis.  It  is  an  inflammation  of  these  bronchial 
tubes,  which  are  within  an  inch  or  two  of  the  lungs.  It 
is  necessary,  therefore,  to  be  very  careful  in  such  circum- 
stances, and  do  exactly  what  the  doctor  prescribes,  be- 
cause— one  step  further,  and  the  inflammation  extends 
from  the  bronchial  tubes  into  the  lungs  themselves,  with 
which  it  is  not  safe  to  play  tricks. 

Having  reached  the  lungs,  the  bronchial  tubes  sub- 
divide into  branches,  which  ramify  again  in  their  turn 
like  the  boughs  of  a  tree,  and  the  whole  ramification 
terminates  in  imperceptible  little  tubes,  each  of  which 
comes  out  in  one  of  those  little  chambers  I  was  talking 
about  just  now.  And  this  is  the  way  in  which  air  gets 
there  at  all. 

The  venous  blood  which  leaves  the  heart,  arrives  on 
its  side  by  one  large  canal,  which  passes  out  from  the 
right  ventricle,  and  which  is  called  the  pulmonary 
artery.  And,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  while  there  is  no 
learned  man  present  to  be  angry  with  us,  it  is  a  very 
ill-chosen  name,  because  it  is  venous  blood  which  flows 
in  this  so-called  artery.  But  the  doctors  have  decided 


THE  ACTION  OF  THE  LUNGS.          165 

that  all  the  vessels  which  run  from  the  heart  should  be 
called  arteries,  and  all  those  which  go  back  to  it  veins, 
whatever  may  be  the  nature  of  the  blood  which  they 
contain.  We  cannot  help  it,  because  they  manage  all 
these  matters  in  their  own  way  ;  but  in  that  case  it  was 
scarcely  worth  their  while  to  talk  about  arterial  and 
venous  blood.  It  would  have  been  better  to  have  said 
simply,  red  blood  and  black  blood. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  venous  blood  arrives  from  the  right 
ventricle  through  the  pulmonary  artery.  This  divides 
itself,  like  the  bronchial  tubes,  into  thousands  of  little 
pipes,  whose  extremities  come  creeping  along  the  par- 
titions of  the  little  chambers  in  question. 

And  here,  then,  takes  place,  between  the  air  and  the 
blood,  that  mysterious  intercourse  for  the  account  of 
which  I  have  kept  you  waiting  so  long  •  and  at  the  end 
of  which  the  black  blood  becomes  red,  or,  in  other  words, 
from  venous  becomes  arterial.  I  have  called  it  "inter- 
course," and  this  is  really  the  proper  phrase ;  for  this 
transformation  of  the  blood  is  accomplished  by  means  of 
an  exchange.  The  air  gives  something  to  the  blood,  and 
the  blood  gives  something  to  the  air — each  giving,  in 
exchange,  like  two  people  over  a  bargain  in  the  market- 
place. 

With  your  permission,  my  dear  child,  we  will  stop 
here  to-day.  We  have  now  got  to  the  charcoal  market, 
and  it  is  a  little  black. 


LETTER  XX. 

CABBON    AND    OXYGEN. 

HERE,  then,  my  dear  child,  we  have  arrived  at  the 
explanation  of  that  great  mystery,  WHY  we  breathe. 
Keep  on  the  alert,  for  we  are  now  entering  into  a  region 
where  everything  will  be  new  to  you. 

Here  we  are  at  the  charcoal  market,  I  said  to  you  just 
now,  and  no  doubt  you  concluded  that  I  was  beginning 
another  comparison. 

But  no  such  thing  ;  there  is  no  question  of  comparison 
or  simile  here  ;  I  state  the  fact  itself,  pure  and  simple  as 
it  stands  :  it  is  a  market,  for  commercial  intercourse  and 
exchange  are  carried  on  there,  as  I  told  you  before,  and 
it  is  a  charcoal  market,  because  charcoal  is,  positively,  the 
essential  and  chief  article  of  commerce. 

You  are  astonished,  I  dare  say,  and  are  ready  to  ask 
me  whether  I  can  possibly  mean  real  charcoal,  charcoal 
such  as  the  coot;  puts  into  the  •furnace.  Surely,  say  you, 
we  have  nothing  like  that  in  our  bodies  ?  Surely  we 
don't  eat  that  f 

But  I  answer  yes  ;  real,  true  charcoal,  and  you  do 
not  dislike  it ;  you  eat  of  it  even  daily ;  nay,  you  do 
not  swallow  a  single  mouthful  of  food  which  does  not 
contain  its  proportion  of  charcoal. 

You  laugh  ;  but  wait  a  little  and  listen. 

When  you  are  toasting  a  slice  of  bread  for  breakfast, 
and  hold  it  too  near  the  fire,  what  happens  to  it  ? 
(166) 


CARBON  AND   OXYGEN.  167 

It  turns  quite  black,  does  it  not  ? 

When  mutton-chops  are  left  too  long  unturned  on  the 
gridiron,  what  happens  to  them  ? 

They  turn  quite  black  also. 

When  your  brother  forgets  the  apples  which  he  has 
set  to  roast,  what  happens  to  them  ? 

They  turn  quite  black,  as  you  have  seen  more  than 
once. 

It  is  always  black,  then,  that  these  things  turn,  is  it 
not  ?  and  a  fine  rich  charcoaly  black,  as  you  may  see  if 
you  please  to  observe  charcoal  closely,  for  just  such  is  the 
color  of  little  burnt  cakes,  over-roasted  chestnuts,  and 
potatoes  in  their  skins,  which  have  been  dropped  into 
the  fire.  r 

But  there  is  a  common  term  by  which  we  can  express 
more  accurately  the  misfortune  which  has  befallen  all 
these  various  things — slices  of  bread,  mutton-chops, 
apples,  cakes,  chestnuts,  potatoes,  and  what-not,  when 
"  burnt,"  "  over-toasted,"  "  over-roasted,"  or  <:  over- 
baked."  We  may  call  them  carbonized,  or  more  simply 
charred  or  charcoaled;  though  the  word  charred  is  gener- 
ally used  only  for  burnt  ivood.  But  carbon  being  the 
principal  ingredient  of  charcoal,  and  charcoal  being  one 
of  the  purer  forms  in  which  we  get  at  carbon,  they  are 
almost  synonymous  terms,  and  you  may  call  your  burnt 
food  carbonized,  or  charred,  or  charcoaled,  whichever  you 
prefer. 

The  next  question  is,  how  did  charcoal  or  carbon  get 
into  the  food  so  as  to  justify  our  talking  of  its  being 
carbonized  or  charred?  Even  when  we  use  charcoal 
stoves  for  cooking,  the  charcoal  does  not  jump  out  and 
get  into  the  mutton-chops,  etc.,  you  may  be  sure.  Then 
it  is  clear  it  must  have  been  in  them  before  they  were 
brought  to  the  fire  to  be  cooked ;  and  such  is  indeed 


168  CARBON   AND    OXYGEN. 

the  case,  only  its  black  face  escaped  notice  because  it 
was  in  such  gay-looking  company,  and  kept  itself  hid 
behind  the  others  like  a  needle  lost  in  a  match-box.  Set 
fire  to  the  matches,  and  you  will  soon  have  nothing  left 
but  the  needle,  which  will  then  strike  your  eye  at  once. 
And  so  with  our  burnt  food  ;  the  fire  has  carried  off  all 
the  other  ingredients,  and  the  charcoal  is  left  behind 
alone,  exposed  to  everybody's  view,  as  if  on  purpose  to 
teach  them  that  it  was  always  there  ;  in  the  apples,  i.e., 
the  potatoes,  mutton-chops,  etc.,  which  seemed  so  tempt- 
ing when  the  black  rogue  was  hid,  but  from  which  now, 
when  he  is  there  by  himself,  they  turn  away  in  disgust. 
Charcoal  is,  in  fact,  a  much  more  generally  distributed 
substance  than  you  have  been  used  to  suppose,  dear 
child.  That  which  'comes  from  burnt  wood  is  most 
easily  observed,  because  there  is  a  much  larger  propor- 
tion of  charcoal  in  wood  than  anywhere  else  ;  but  there 
is  not  a  morsel,  however  small,  of  any  animal  or  vege- 
table whatsoever,  which  does  not  contain  charcoal.  In 
the  sugar  which  you  crunch,  in  the  wine  which  you  drink, 
there  is  charcoal.  I  could  even  find  some  in  the  water 
you  wash  in  if  I  were  to  try  hard.  There  is  charcoal 
in  the  goose-quill  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  at  this 
moment,  and  in  the  paper  on  which  I  am  writing,  and 
in  the  handkerchief  on  my  knee.  If  I  hold  them  all 
three  in  the  light  of  my  wax  taper,  I  shall  soon  seo 
them  turn  black  and  betray  the  presence  of  our  friend. 
It  exists  in  the  wax  taper  itself,  as  also  in  the  candle, 
as  also  in  the  oil  lamp.  If  I  were  to  hold  a  piece  of 
flat  glass  above  their  flame,  I  should  collect  enough  of 
it  to  blacken  the  tip  of  anybody's  nose  who  presumed 
to  doubt  the  fact.  There  is  a  portion  of  it  in  the  air  ; 
a  portion  of  it  in  the  earth.  Where  is  it  not  ?  In  short, 
all  the  stones  of  all  the  buildings  in  the  world  are  filled 


CARBON   AND   OXYGEN.  169 

with  it  from  top  to  bottom.  Charcoal,  under  his  more 
scientific  and  important  name  of  carton,  may  be  called 
one  of  the  great  lords  of  the  world.  His  domain  is  so 
extensive  that  one  might  go  round  the  world  without 
getting  out  of  it ;  he  is  even  worse  than  the  Marquis 
of  Car  abas. 

After  this  you  will  never,  I  hope,  want  to  persuade  me 
you  do  not  eat  charcoal ;  for,  indeed,  you  would  be  puz- 
zled to  escape  doing  so.  Of  all  the  things  you  see  on 
the  dinner-table  there  is  but  one  in  which  you  will  not 
find  it — viz.,  the  salt-cellar  ;  and  even  while  saying  this, 
I  mean  only,  in  the  salt  itself,  for  as  to  the  salt-cellar, 
clear  and  transparent  as  its  glass  may  be,  there  is  char- 
coal in  it ! 

Our  bodies,  therefore,  are  full  of  charcoal.  Every- 
thing that  we  eat  supplies  them  with  enormous  quantities 
of  it,  which  take  up  their  quarters  in  every  corner  of  our 
organs.  It  is  one  of  the  principal  materials  of  the  vast 
collection  of  structures  of  which  I  spoke  to  you  in  the 
early  part  of  these  letters,  and  of  which  the  blood,  the 
steward  of  the  body,  is  the  universal  master-builder.  If 
you  remember,  I  told  you  then  that  these  structures  fell 
to  pieces  of  themselves,  in  proportion  as  the  workmen 
went  on  building,  and  that  the  blood,  which  brings  fresh 
materials  on  its  arrival  from  the  lungs  and  heart,  carries 
away  the  refuse  ones  on  its  return.  And,  of  all  these  re- 
fuse materials,  old  charcoal  is  one.  of  those  which  takes 
up  the  most  room,  as  fresh  charcoal  took  up  a  great  deal 
of  room  in  the  new  materials.  The  blood,  as  he  goes 
back  again,  has  his  pockets  quite  crammed  with  it,  and 
if  he  did  not  try  hard  to  get  rid  of  it  as  fast  as  possible, 
he  would  be  disabled  from  being  of  any  further  use. 

Now  it  is  in  the  lungs  that  he  clears  himself  of  it.  He 
gives  it  up  to  the  air,  which  has  need  of  it  for  a  very  in- 
8 


170  CARBON   AND   OXYGEN. 

teresting  operation,  of  which  I  shall  tell  you  more  by- 
and-bye  ;  and  in  return  the  air  gives  him  something 
which  is  quite  indispensable  to  him,  for  without  it  he 
would  not  dare  to  return  to  the  organs,  as  his  authority 
would  no  longer  be  recognised. 

In  the  same  way,  the  charcoal-seller  goes  to  market 
with  his  charcoal  and  receives  silver  in  exchange. 

If  he  were  to  go  home  without  money  his  wife  would 
receive  him  with  abuse. 

But  what  is  the  indispensable  thing  which  the  blood 
obtains  in  his  marketing  ? 

Remember  its  name  well :  it  is  OXYGEN. 

And  we  must  speak  of  it  with  respect,  for  we  are  talk- 
ing here  of  a  very  great  and  powerful  personage,  very 
superior  even  to  CARBON.  If  CARBON  be  one  of  the 
great  lords  of  the  world,  OXYGEN  is  its  king. 

There  is  a  certain  substance,  my  dear  child,  of  which 
many  people,  especially  little  girls,  do  not  even  know 
the  name,  but  which  yet  constitutes  of  itself  alone  a  good 
half  of  everything  we  are  acquainted  with  in  the  world. 
And  this  substance  is  the  very  thing  I  have  just  named 
to  you.  It  is  OXYGEN. 

Ascend  into  the  air  as  high  as  you  can  go,  viz.,  to  forty 
miles  or  so  from  the  ground,  as  we  said  before  ;  oxygen 
forms  the  fifth  part  of  that  vast  aerial  ocean  which  sur- 
rounds the  globe  on  every  side.  There  it  is  free — is 
itself — if  I  may  use  the  expression ;  it  is  in  the  condition 
of  gas  /  that  is  to  say,  it  eludes  our  sight,  though  there 
is  no  difficulty  in  ascertaining  its  presence,  when  one 
knows  how  to  set  about  it. 

Go  down  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.  People  think 
they  have  good  reasons  for  believing  this  to  be  two  and 
a  half  miles  deep  on  an  average,  which  would  give  a 
pretty  little  sum  total  of  tons  for  its  whole  weight,  as  you 


CAEBON   AND   OXYGEN.  171 

will  be  convinced,  if  you  take  the  trouble  of  observing 
the  space  it  covers  on  a  map  of  the  world  ; — to  say 
nothing  of  lakes,  rivers,  streams,  the  water  in  the  clouds, 
the  water  scattered  throughout  the  interior  or  on  the 
surface  of  continents,  including  that  with  which  you 
wash  your  face  every  morning. 

Oxygen  enters  in  the  proportion  of  eight-ninths  into 
the  composition  of  this  incalculable  mass.  Eight-ninths, 
you  understand,  which  is  very  near  being  the  whole 
nine ;  in  every  nine  pounds  of  water  there  are  eight 
pounds  of  oxygen,  the  remainder  being  left  for,  another 
substance,  of  which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  pre- 
sently, and  which  is  called  hydrogen. 

The  earth  on  which  you  tread  .is  full  of  oxygen.  So 
far  as  we  have  penetrated  hitherto  into  the  interior  of 
the  globe,  we  have  found  king  Oxygen  everywhere  :  hid- 
den under  a  thousand  forms,  connected^  with  a  heap  of 
substances,  not  one  of  which  could  exist  without  him  ; 
imprisoned  in  a  thousand  combinations,  and  always  ready 
to  resume  his  natural  condition  if  his  prison-house  be  de- 
stroyed. The  whole  surface  of  the  earth,  plains,  hills, 
mountains,  towns,  deserts,  cultivated  fields,  everything 
you  would  look  down  upon,  if  on  a  clear  day  you  could 
be  carried  high  enough  in  a  balloon  to  take  in  the  whole 
earth  at  a  glance  : — all  that  may  be  considered  as  an  im- 
mense reservoir  of  oxygen,  out  of  which  we  should  see 
it  escaping  in  gigantic  waves,  if  some  superhuman  chem- 
ist were  to  take  it  into  his  head  to  put  our  poor  little 
globe  into  a  retort  of  the  same  kind  as  chemists  use 
among  us.  To  give  you  an  example  ;  the  stones  of  our 
fine  buildings,  in  which  we  have  already  discovered  the 
presence  of  carbon,  are  almost  half  made  up  of  oxygen. 
In  a  stone  which  weighs  100  Ibs.  there  are  48  Ibs.  of  oxy- 
gen, and  the  first  chemist  who  passes  by  could  make 


172  CARBON   AND    OXYGEN. 

them  come  out  of  it  if  he  chose,  if  he  were  to  use  a  little 
trouble  and  skill. 

I  enumerated  to  you  last  time  many  of  the  substances 
in  which  carbon  is  to  be  found  ;  but  as  regards  oxygen 
we  must  give  up  all  attempt  at  making  a  list ;  it  would 
comprehend  the  whole  dictionary.  Touch  whatever  lies 
under  your  hand — in  your  room — in  the  house — wherever 
you  may  go — I  will  almost  defy  you  to  put  your  finger 
upon  anything — metals  excepted — which  is  not  crammed 
with  oxygen.  Your  very  body,  to  conclude  with,  would 
become  so  small  a  thing,  were  the  oxygen  it  contains  ex- 
tracted from  it,  that  you  would  be  perfectly  amazed. 

So  when  I  told  you  oxygen  was  king  of  the  world,  I 
did  not  say  too  much,  did  I  ?  Between  ourselves  too,  it 
is  a  great  misfortune  that  people  live  on  so  complacent- 
ly in  total  ignorance  of  this  all-important  material, 
which  is  connected  with  everything,  which  insinuates  it- 
self everywhere,  which  we  make  use  of  every  instant  of 
our  lives,  which  may  almost  be  said  to  be  in  some  sort 
our  very  selves,  since  it  constitutes  three-fourths  of  our 
body,  but  whose  name  nevertheless  would,  I  am  certain, 
make  many  pretty  little  mouths  pout,  if  one  were  to  utter 
it  in  a  drawing-room. 

This  is  really  the  case.  Many  young  ladies  who  are 
proud  to  know  who  Caractacus  was,  would  be  ashamed 
to  know  anything  about  oxygen.  There  is  a  foolish  no- 
tion that  women  have  no  business  with  such  subjects, 
probably  because  children  are  supposed  not  to  breathe 
and  mothers  are  not  required  to  watch  over  them  ? 

This  reminds  me  that  we  are  on  the  road  to  explain 
respiration,  which  I  had  almost  forgotten  in  lifting  up 
this  corner  of  the  veil  behind  which  Nature  hides  her 
most  valuable  secrets  from  the  idle  and  ignorant. 

It  is  oxygen  then,  which  the  blood  carries  off  trium- 


CARBON   AND   OXYGEN.  173 

phantly  from  his  interview  with  the  air  in  the  cells  of 
the  lungs  ;  and,  by  the  way,  it  is,  thanks  to  this  oxygen 
that  it  returns  from  the  lungs  to  the  heart,  and  so  from 
the  heart  to  the  organs,  with  that  beautiful  rosy  tint 
which  distinguishes  arterial  from  venous  blood. 

Now  the  blood  gives  out  this  oxygen  on  its  road  every 
time  it  performs  the  journey,  and  the  perpetual  course  it 
performs  from  the  lungs  to  the  organs,  and  from  the  or- 
gans to  the  lungs,  has  for  its  chief  object  the  perpetual 
renovation  of  this  previous  provision,  which  is  as  per- 
petually consumed. 

Do  you  ask  of  what  use  it  is  ?  Does  the  blood  leave 
it  at  random  in  our  organs,  and  is  it  one  of  the  materials 
with  which  our  steward  is  constantly  providing  the  little 
workmen  of  the  body  for  their  various  constructions  ? 

No,  my  dear  child.  The  proverb  "  One  cannot  live 
upon  air"  is  a  very  true  one,  although  it  is  equally  true 
that  we  cannot  live  without  air.  Air  does  not  nourish 
our  organs  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  consumes  them,  and 
what  we  eat,  serves  to  supply  in  precisely  the  same  pro- 
portion its  insatiable  appetite.  When  we  leave  off  eat- 
ing, from  whatever  cause,  the  air  does  not  leave  off  too. 
He  goes  on  always  just  the  same,  and  that  is  the  reason 
why  people  who  are  starved  to  death  are  so  thin.  (The 
air  has  consumed  the  vital  parts.) 

You  did  not  expect  this  ;  but  now  prepare  yourself 
to  go  on  from  one  surprise  to  another.  To  begin  with, 
I  shall  have  to  stop  here  and  explain  to  you  before  we 
go  any  further — can  you  guess  what  ?  Nay,  I  am  sure 
you  cannot ;  FIRE. 

There  is  not  much  connection,  you  will  say,  between 
fire  and  breathing. 

But  there  you  are  mistaken.  It  is  precisely  the  samo 
thing,  as  I  will  prove  to  you  next  time. 


LETTER    XXL 

-  COMBUSTION. 

HAVE  you  never,  my  dear  child,  whilst  warming  your 
little  feet  on  the  hearth  in  winter-time,  asked  yourself, 
What  is  fire?  that  great  benefactor  of  man  ;  fire,  with- 
out which  part  of  the  world  would  be  uninhabitable  by 
us  during  at  least  a  third  of  the  year ;  fire,  without 
which  we  could  not  bake  a  morsel  of  bread,  and  would 
have  to  eat  our  meat  raw ;  fire,  which  lights  up  the 
night  for  us,  and  without  which  we  should  have  to  go  to 
bed  when  the  hens  go  to  roost ;  fire,  which  subdues 
metals,  and  without  which  we  should  have  neither  iron, 
nor  copper,  nor  silver,  nor  anything  that  is  manufactur- 
ed from  those  materials  ;  fire,  without  which,  in  short, 
human  industry  could  not  rise  to  much  higher  results 
than  that  of  the  monkey  and  of  the  beaver  ? 

We  are  all  of  us,  it  is  true,  so  much  accustomed  to 
fire  that  we  do  not  pay  much  attention  to  it,  and  have  a 
sort  of  persuasion  that  lucifer  matches  have  existed 
from  all  eternity.  But  the  first  men,  who  were  nearer 
neighbors  to  that  great  discovery  whence  all  others  have 
originated — the  first  men  treated  fire  with  more  respect 
than  we  do.  It  was  to  them  one  of  the  mighty  things 
of  the  world.  The  ancient  Persians  made  a  god  of  it, 
and  told  how  Zoroaster,  their  prophet,  went  to  seek  it 
in  heaven,  passing  thither  from  the  top  of  the  Himalayas, 
the  highest  chain  of  mountains  in  the  known  world. 

(174) 


COMBUSTIOX.  175 

The  old  Greeks  pretended  that  Prometheus  stole  it  from 
the  gods,  to  make  a  present  of  it  to  man,  which  came  to 
nearly  the  same  thing  as  the  Persian  account.  The 
Romans  had  their  sacred  fire,  which  the  celebrated  Ves- 
tals were  bound  to  keep  lighted,  on  pain  of  death  to 
whoever  should  let  it  go  out.  At  the  present  day  we 
do  not  stand  upon  such  ceremonies,  but  warm  our  feet 
at  it  quite  familiarly,  without  wishing  for  anything  fur- 
ther. But  you  would  see  a  terrible  revolution  in  the 
world  if  some  Prometheus  reversed  were,  some  fine 
morning,  to  steal  it  from  us,  and  carry  it  back  to  its 
ancient  owners.  Every  branch  of  human  industry 
would  suddenly  stop,  as  if  by  enchantment,  and  in  the 
course  of  a  very  few  years  the  poor  little  framework  of 
human  society,  of  which  we  are  now  so  proud,  would 
totally  change  its  aspect,  and  the  whole  world  would  be 
turned  topsy-turvy. 

But  do  not  be  alarmed ;  there  is  no  danger  of  the 
sort.  Fire  is  not  a  present  once  made  to  man,  but  liable 
to  be  taken  away  from  him  at  will.  It  is  a  law  of  na- 
ture which  existed  before  the  human  race  came  into 
being,  and  which  will  doubtless  continue  to  exist  when 
the  human  race  shall  have  disappeared.  The  existence 
of  fire  is  connected  in  the  most  intimate  way  with  that 
of  that  great  king  of  the  world  of  whom  we  spoke  last 
time — Oxygen.  Fire  is  the  wedding-feast  of  Oxygen 
with  other  substances ! 

When  kings  are  married,  what  rejoicings  there  are ! 
what  a  commotion !  what  illuminations  !  It  is  only  right 
and  proper,  then,  that  the  king  of  the  world  should  have 
rejoicings  and  illuminations  at  his  weddings  also.  And 
they  have  never  been  wanting.  The  rejoicings  are  the 
warmth  which  rejoices  us  ;  the  illuminations,  the  flame 
which  gives  us  light.  But  man,  in  his  dealings  with 


176  COMBUSTION. 

nature,  is  an  imperious  subject,  such  as  few  earthly  kings 
are  troubled  with — happily  for  them!  Whenever  he 
wants  warmth  and  light  he  forces  the  king  of  the  world 
to  get  married,  and  then  takes  advantage  of  the  feast ; 
nothing  worse  than  that. 

"  How  so  ?"  you  exclaim.  "  If  I  want  to  make  a  fire 
with  stones  or  iron,  I  should  never  succeed.  Is  this  be- 
cause oxygen  never  unites  himself  with  those  substances, 
nor  with  heaps  of  others  which  are  equally  useless  in 
lighting  a  fire  ?  Yet  you  told  me  that  oxygen  was  to 
be  met  with  almost  everywhere." 

It  is  a  fair  question,  my  dear  child ;  but  my  answer 
is,  that  what  you  said  last  is  precisely  the  reason  why 
all  substances  are  not  fit  for  making  fire  of.  When  oxy- 
gen is  already  there,  as  he  is  in  stones,  for  instance,  the 
marriage  is  over — the  feast  cannot  begin  again.  Kings 
are  like  other  people  in  this  respect ;  their  weddings 
are  only  celebrated  once.  If  you  had  happened  to  be 
present  at  the  moment  when  oxygen  was  united  to  the 
materials  of  which  stones  are  composed,  you  would 
have  seen  a  feast  of  which  I  should  like  to  have  heard 
some  news.  I  was  not  there  myself  either  ;  but  learned 
men  in  these  latter  days  have  succeeded  in  breaking  the 
bonds  which  united  oxygen  with  the  primitive  substances 
in  certain  fragments  of  stone,  and  with  these  substances 
thus  freed,  and  consequently  able  to  remarry,  they  have 
been  enabled  to  give  us,  in  miniature,  the  spectacle  of 
the  festivities  of  a  fresh  wedding.  And  I  can  assure 
you  it  is  enough  to  make  one  shudder,  to  think  of  the 
time  when  such  a  marriage  must  have  taken  place  on  a 
large  scale. 

With  regard  to  iron  the  case  is  quite  different. 

You  have  without  doubt  heard  tell  of  Louis  XIY.  (of 
France),  that  proud  king  who  was  called  le  Grand,  and 


COMBUSTIOX.  177 

who  is  said  to  have  heard  himself  compared  to  the  sun, 
without  smiling.  It  seems  that  he  one  day  took  it  into 
his  head  to  marry,  it  is  difficult  to  say  why,  with  Madame 
de  Maintenon,  the  old  wife  of  a  poor  paralytic  poet 
named  Scarron,  who,  as  such,  however,  was  only  known 
by  some  few  farces.  Do  you  suppose  that  the  palace  of 
Versailles  was  illuminated  in  honor  of  this  marriage  ? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  It  was  a  disgraceful  marriage,  which 
they  were  bound  to  keep  secret.  The  ceremony  was 
conducted  mysteriously  and  without  lighting  a  single 
candle  more  than  ordinary. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  oxygen  has  any  of  these 
weaknesses,  nor  that  he  is  any  more  partial  to  marrying 
with  one  body  more  than  with  another.  In  the  good 
God's  great  world,  outside  of  the  family  of  man,  they 
know  nothing  of  our  foolish  pride,  of  our  little  weak- 
nesses. It  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that  this  dear  monarch  has 
his  preferences,  and  that  all  his  marriages  are  not 
made  in  this  fashion. 

Leave  those  pretty  little  scissors  of  yours,  with  which 
you  would  try  in  vain  to  make  a  fire,  outside  your  win- 
dow for  two  or  three  days,  and  then  observe  the  dread- 
ful, scaly,  red  stain  which  you  are  sure  to  find  on  them 
afterwards,  and  which  is  called  rust.  Have  you  any 
idea  whence  it  proceeds  ?  I  will  tell  you.  It  comes 
from  the  oxygen,  which  has  been  making  one  of  those 
cheerless  secret  marriages  with  the  iron  of  your  scissors. 
So  there  have  been  no  pretty  sights  nor  sounds,  no  lights 
nor  cheerful  noises  to  entertain  anybody,  and  though 
people  may  have  wished  for  them  ever  so  much,  they 
have  had  to  do  without  them. 

I  will  tell  you  the  true  reason  of  these  marriages  in- 
cognito. It  is  because  oxygen  is  but  feebly  attracted  by 
iron,  who  does  not  stand  so  high  in  his  good  graces  as 
8* 


178  COMBUSTION. 

many  other  bodies,  and  so  (to  continue  the  joke)  he 
unites  slowly  and  languidly  with  him,  as  we  may  say. 

Now  tell  me,  when  you  set  fire  to  a  bit  of  paper,  how 
long  does  it  take  to  burn  ? 

Half  a  minute,  at  the  utmost,  you  answer. 

Very  good.  And  how  long  does  it  take  to  produce 
that  rust-stain,  even  though  it  is  probably  not  a  hun- 
dredth part  the  size  of  the  paper  ? 

Two  or  three  days,  is  your  reply,  for  so  I  told  you  my- 
self. 

Here  is  a  strange  dfference  indeed  ;  but  from  it  you 
may  discover  why  you  have  not  seen  any  signs  of  re- 
joicing or  illuminations  at  the  iron  wedding.  These  are 
always  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  oxygen  which  is 
being  married  at  once — and  this  was — oh,  such  a  slow 
affair!  "When  the  quantity  is  very  small  indeed,  the 
festal  illuminations  are  very  small  indeed  too,  and  in 
fact  escape  observation  altogether.  In  the  same  way 
that  you  would  not  be  conscious  of  little  bits  of  thread 
laid  delicately  one  after  another  on  your  back,  whereas 
you  would  plainly  feel  a  large  sheet,  were  it  to  fall  on 
your  shoulders.  Yet  what  is  the  large  sheet  but  a  great 
quantity  of  little  bits  of  thread  ?  Only  in  that  case 
they  would  all  come  upon  you  at  once,  like  the  marriage 
illuminations  of  burning  paper. 

Wait  a  little  longer  and  we  shall  finish. 

What  is  there,  then,  in  the  paper  which  pleases  the 
oxygen  so  much  that  he  unites  himself  to  it  so  readily, 
and  in  such  large  quantities  ? 

What  is  there  ?  Two  substances  of  liigh  degree,  who 
have  actually  risen  to  the  dignity  of  a  royal  alliance,  by 
the  important  part  they  play  in  the  world  ;  one  of  these, 
charcoal  or  carbon,  we  know  quite  well  already  ;  the 
other  I  have  only  mentioned  to  you  in  connection 


COMBUSTION.  179 

with  water,  HYDROGEN.  Thanks  to  gas  companies,  every- 
body in  these  days  knows  hydrogen,  at  least  by  name. 
But  before  proceeding,  I  will  just  tell  you  that  it  is  by 
far  the  lightest  body  that  is  known.  It  is  forty  and  a 
half  times  lighter  than  air,  which  is  not  very  heavy  itself, 
although  in  the  mass  it  has  its  weight,  as  we  have  seen. 

The  true  province  of  hydrogen  is  water,  where  it  keeps 
house  with  oxygen,  in  proportion  of  one  to  eight  pounds, 
as  you  may  remember  I  stated  in  my  last  letter.  But 
beside  this,  hydrogen  and  carbon  are  in  a  manner  insepar- 
able friends,  whom  one  invariably  meets  side  by  side  in 
all  animal  and  vegetable  substances.  In  wood,  coal,  oil, 
tallow,  and  spirits  of  wine  ;  in  everything  in  short  that 
we  call  combustibles,  because  the  name  of  combustion  has 
been  given  to  this  marriage  of  oxygen  with  other  bodies, 
hydrogen  and  carbon  keep  themselves  shut  up  very  dis- 
creetly and  very  quietly  ;  like  two  children  playing  at 
hide-and-seek.  You  have  sometimes  played  at  hide-and- 
seek  yourself,  no  doubt?  Now,  if  some  naughty  child 
had  come  behind  you  with  a  lighted  candle,  what  would 
you  have  done?  You  would  have  had  to  turn  out, 
whether  you  liked  it  or  not,  and  be  caught.  Well !  this 
is  what  happens  to  our  two  friends,  when  you  bring  the 
paper  to  the  fire.  The  heat  forces  them  out,  and  the 
oxygen,  which  is  always  at  hand,  seizes  upon  them.  In  a 
twinkling  they  are  married,  and  a  beautiful  flame  springs 
up  into  the  air, which  lasts  till  everything  has  disappeared. 

Hydrogen  and  carbon  !  These,  then,  are  the  two  great 
combustibles,  the  two  parents  of  fire  ;  and  as  nature  has 
lavished  them  upon  us  in  what  we  may  call  inexhaustible 
quantities  ;  when  you  hear  people  lamenting  and  saying 
that  wood  is  disappearing,  that  coal  is  diminishing,  and 
that  the  human  race  will  end  by  not  knowing  how  to 
warm  themselves,  do  not  disturb  yourself  in  the  least. 


ISO  COMBUSTION. 

There .  is  more  hydrogen  in  a  bucket  of  water  than  is 
wanted  to  cook  a  large  dinner.  There  is  as  much  and 
more  carbon  in  our  stone  quarries  than  in  our  coal  pits, 
and  when  all  the  woods  in  the  world  are  cut  down  (which 
I  trust  will  never  be  !)  do  you  know  what  we  shall  do  ? 
Why,  we  shall  take  to  burning  the  mountains.  The  Jura 
mountains  in  Switzerland,  for  instance,  (to  take  the  most 
favorable  case)  are  great  masses  of  carbon,  without  its 
ever  being  visible.  Everything  depends  upon  knowing 
how  to  make  it  come  out  of  its  hiding  place  ;  but  that 
will  de  done  when  it  is  wanted  :  more  difficult  matters 
have  been  accomplished  already.  As  to  oxygen,  wheth- 
er carbon  comes  to  him  from  a  log  of  wood  or  from  a 
building  stone  ;  whether  the  hydrogen  comes  from  a  cau- 
dle or  a  glass  of  water,  is  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference 
to  him.  He  only  considers  persons,  riot  their  origin,  and 
marries  as  willingly  in  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

So  we  have  returned  to  the  subject  of  respiration,  on 
which  I  always  seem  to  be  turning  my  back  ;  but  now 
the  question  is,  what  brings  us  to  it  again  ?  And  this 
is  the  explanation. 

When  the  oxygen  picked  up  in  the  lungs  by  the  blood 
has  traveled  with  it  to  the  organs,  he  finds  there  two 
well-known  friends — hydrogen  and  carbon. 

You  smile,  and  exclaim  at  once,  "  Then  he  marries 
them,  does  he?" 

Yes,  my  dear  child  ;  and  it  is  only  for  that  purpose  he 
enters  our  bodies  at  all.  And  this  is  why  I  could  not 
make  you  understand  the  nature  of  respiration  until  I 
had  explained  that  of  fire  to  you.  As  I  have  told  you 
before,  it  is  the  same  thing.  Invite  air  into  your  body 
by  the  bellows  of  your  chest,  or  drive  it  into  the  fire  by 
the  kitchen  bellows — it  is  always  king  Oxygen  whom 
you  are  sending  to  his  wedding. 


LETTER    XXII. 

ANIMAL   HEAT. 

Now,  then,  we  have  got  hold  of  the  secret  of  respira- 
tion ;  the  oxygen  within  us  unites  itself  to  the  hydrogen 
and  carbon. 

And  for  what  purpose,  do  you  suppose  ? 

Unquestionably  it  must  be  to  make  a  fire,  since  they 
never  come  together  without  doing  so. 
'  But  what  do  people  make  fires  for  ?  I  ask  next.  Well ! 
surely  to  warm  themselves,  do  they  not? 

And  this  is  the  history  of  your  body  being  warm  ex- 
actly like  a  dining-room  stove,  where  the  oxygen  in  the 
air  forms  an  alliance  with  the  hydrogen  and  carbon  of 
the  wood.  Nature  warms  little  girls  inside,  on  precisely 
the  same  plan  by  which  men  warm  their  houses  in  win- 
ter. 

Imagine,  then,  a  little  stove,  furnished  with  little  arms 
for  helping  itself  out  of  the  wood-basket  as  it  is  wanted, 
and  with  little  legs  to  run  and  refill  it  when  it  is 
empty  ;  the  fire  must  be  always  burning  there,  and  the 
stove  must  be  always  warm. 

Just  such  a  little  stove  is  your  body  ;  your  mouth  being 
the  little  door,  by  which  there  constantly  enter — not 
wood,  that  would  hardly  be  pleasant — but — hydrogen 
and  carbon  under  the  forms  of  bread,  mutton  broth, 
cakes,  sweetmeats,  and  all  the  good  things  people  have 
learnt  to  make  with  sugar,  fat,  and  flour.  There  is  hy- 

(181) 


182  ANIMAL   HEAT. 

drogen  and  carbon  in  everything  we  eat,  as  I  have  al- 
ready told  you ;  but  sugar,  fat,  flour,  and  wine  are  the 
substances  which  contain  them  in  the  greatest  quantities, 
and  consequently  they  are  our  best  combustibles. 

You  are  surprised,  perhaps,  at  wine  being  a  combusti- 
ble ;  wine,  which  you  think  would  put  out  rather  than 
make  a  fire. 

And  it  would.  But  that  is  only  because  in  it,  what  is 
good  for  burning  is  mixed  with  a  great  deal  of  water, 
which  prevents  our  being  able  to  set  it  on  fire.  But  if 
part  of  this  water  is  withdrawn,  you  have  brandy,  which 
lights  easily  enough  j  and  if  part  of  the  remaining  water 
is  withdrawn  from  the  brandy,  you  have  spirits  of  wine, 
which  takes  fire  more  easily  still.  If  you  have  ever  seen 
a  spirit-of-wine  lamp,  you  must  know  something  about 
this.  Judge  from  that  what  a  fire  spirits  of  wine  must 
make  in  the  body,  even  when  it  has  a  good  deal  of  water 
with  it ;  for  it  is  right  to  tell  you  that  your  little  stove 
is  very  superior  to  the  one  in  the  dining-room,  and  that 
it  hunts  out  for  consumption  the  smallest  portions  of 
combustible  matter,  in  places  where  the  other  would  be 
a  good  deal  puzzled  to  find  them. 

This  is  not  all,  however.  I  have  much  greater  won- 
ders to  tell  you  yet. 

What  should  you  say  to  a  stove,  which,  summer  or 
winter,  night  or  day,  in  rain  or  sunshine,  amid  the  ice  of 
the  pole,  or  under  the  sun  of  the  equator,  was  able  to 
keep  itself  constantly  in  the  same  condition  ;  neither 
hotter  nor  colder  one  minute  than  another,  whether  you 
gave  it  much  or  little  fuel,  at  a  given  moment,  and  some- 
times when  you  gave  it  nothing  for  whole  days  together  ? 
It  would  be  worthy  of  a  fairy  tale,  would  it  not  ?  Yet 
the  human  body  is  a  stove  of  this  description. 

But  this  requires  a  little  explanation. 


ANIMAL  HEAT.  183 

It  is  rather  bold  in  me,  you  may  think,  to  assert  so 
freely,  that  all  the  year  round,  from  one  end  of  the  earth 
to  the  other,  the  human  body  is  never  colder  nor  hot- 
ter than  mine  is,  for  instance,  at  this  present  moment. 
"  Hot"  and  "  cold"  is  soon  said,  you  argue  :  but  the  ex- 
act varieties  of  more  or  less  are  not  so  easy  to  measure, 
and  especially  not  easy  to  remember,  with  reference  to 
so  many  bodies,  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth.  What  may  be  warmth  for  one  in  one  case,  may 
not  be  equal  warmth  for  another  ;  and  even  supposing 
that  the  same  individual  learned  man  could  go  and  in- 
spect every  part  of  the  globe  in  succession,  how  could  he 
possibly  recall,  while  touching  the  body  of  a  negro  in 
Senegal,  in  July,  the  exact  amount  of  animal  heat  he  had 
found  in  a  Greenland  Esquimaux  in  January  ? 

Be  content.  I  should  not  have  settled  the  question  so 
cavalierly,  if  people  had  not  discovered  an  infallible 
method  of  estimating  accurately,  and  always  in  the  same 
manner,  the  degree  of  warmth,  in  other  words,  the  tem- 
perature of  the  body. 

Let  us  first  see,  then,  what  this  method  is,  though  it 
will  oblige  us  to  digress  a  little  ;  but  you  are  accustomed 
to  that  now,  surely  ;  and  besides,  if  I  were  to  go  straight 
ahead,  you  would  not  be  able  to  follow  me. 

Do  you  ever  recollect  being  very  cold  ?  Let  mammas 
look  after  their  little  girls  as  much  as  they  please,  to 
prevent  it,  it  is  sure  to  happen  to  every  one  some  day  or 
other.  Now  does  it  not  seem  at  those  times  as  if  the 
whole  body  were  contracting  itself — and  when  people 
are  shivering  with  cold,  have  they  not  a  shrunk,  shriv- 
elled look  ?  When  the  weather  is  very  hot,  on  the  con- 
trary, our  bodies  feel  as  if  they  were  swelling  and  stretch- 
ing, and  one  seems  to  take  up  more  room  than  before. 
This  is  the  case  with  all  bodies.  Heat  swells,  or,  as 


184  ANIMAL  HEAT. 

learned  people  call  it,  expands,  them :  cold  shrinks  or 
contracts  them.  Furthermore,  mercury  is  one  of  the 
things  most  susceptible  of  this  action  of  heat  and  cold, 
and  we  have  had  recourse  to  it  accordingly,  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  thermometer*  a  very  useful  instrument, 
which  you  will  hear  spoken  of  all  your  life. 

The  thermometer,  or  heat-measure,  consists  of  a  little 
hollow  ball  filled  with  mercury,  out  of  which  rises  a 
small  tube  of  very  thin  glass,  in  which  the  mercury  can 
move  up  and  down.  When  the  thermometer  is  exposed 
to  heat,  the  heat  causes  the  mercury  to  expand,  so  it  goes 
up  the  tube  ;  when  the  thermometer  is  exposed  to  cold, 
the  mercury  contracts  and  sinks  again. 

Now  suppose  you  were  to  melt  some  ice  in  the  palm 
of  one  hand,  and  try  to  dip  a  finger-tip  of  the  other  in  a 
saucepan  of  boiling  water  ;  you  would  find  a  great  dif- 
ference of  temperature  between  the  two,  would  you  not  ? 
Which  difference  of  temperature  people  have  succeeded 
in  measuring  with  the  thermometer,  as  accurately  as 
your  mamma  measures  a  piece  of  cloth  with  her  yard 
measure. 

This  is  how  it  is  done  : 

You  surround  the  ball  of  mercury  with  pounded  ice, 
and  while  it  is  melting  make  a  mark  at  that  point  in  the 
tube  where  the  mercury  has  stopped  in  its  descent.  Then 
plunge  the  thermometer  into  boiling  water.  Whereupon 
the  mercury  goes  up,  up,  up,  till  at  last  it  reaches  a  point 
beyond  which  it  will  not  pass.  Here  a  second  mark  is 
made,  and  the  space  between  the  two  marks  is  divided 
into  a  hundred  perfectly  equal  parts,  indicated  by  so 

*  Thermometer  comes  from  two  Greek  words :  thermos,  lieat ;  and 
metron,  measure.  The  degrees  in  the  Thermometer  about  to  be  de- 
scribed are  marked  on  the  Centigrade  principle.  [Not  the  one  (Fah- 
renheit) in  general  use  in  the  United  States.] 


ANIMAL   HEAT.  185 

many  small  lines,  which  are  called  degrees.  But  this 
word  degrees  has  a  double  meaning  in  some  languages. 
It  means  steps  as  well  as  the  degrees  of  measurement 
we  are  talking  about ;  steps  being,  as  you  know,  the 
perfectly  equal  parts  into  which  a  staircase  is  divided. 
Fancy  the  mercury-tube  a  staircase,  then,  rising  from  the 
cellar  where-  the  melting  ice  is,  up  to  the  garret  where 
the  boiling  water  is,  and  let  it  consist  of  100  steps.  The 
mercury  goes  up  and  down  this  staircase,  according  as 
the  temperature  it  encounters  approaches  that  of  the 
boiling  water  or  of  the  melting  ice  ;  and  if  you  wish  to 
know  exactly  how  far  it  is  from  the  cellar  or  from  the 
garret,  you  have  only  to  count  the  steps.  Hence  arise 
those  expressions  which  you  so  often  hear — high  temper- 
ature and  low  temperature.  These  mean,  temperature 
according  to  which  the  mercury  goes  up  or  down  this 
staircase. 

On  the  actual  floor  of  the  cellar  where  the  ice  melts, 
there  are  yet  no  degrees  (a  floor  is  not  a  step,  you  know), 
so  there  you  find  the  word  zero,  which  means  a  cipher  or 
nought.  Then  you  begin  to  count  1,  2,  3,  4  degrees, 
marked  by  lines  up  to  100,  where  you  reach  the  garret, 
i.e.  the  boiling-water  height. 

Of  course,  if  the  thermometer  be  exposed  to  an  amount 
of  cold  greater  than  that  of  melting  ice,  the  mercury  will 
sink  below  the  cellar.  Accordingly  the  staircase  is  car- 
ried below  it,  with  steps  (so  to  speak)  of  precisely  the 
same  size  as  those  above,  and  you  count  as  before,  1,  2, 
3,  <fec.,  as  it  descends  ;  adding  however,  to  distinguish 
these  degrees  from  the  others,  "  below  zero."  You  may 
go  on  in  that  way  as  far  as  40  ;  but  there  you  must  stop. 
At  that  point  the  mercury  freezes.  He  sits  down  there 
on  his  last  step,  and  will  not  go  any  further ! 

In  the  same  way  if  the  thermometer  is  exposed  to  a 


186  ANIMAL   HEAT. 

heat  greater  than  that  of  boiling  water,  the  mercury  will 
rise  higher  than  the  garret.  So  the  staircase  is  made  to 
go  up  higher,  and  always  with  steps  of  the  same  size, 
counting  from  101  upwards,  as  far  as  350  if  you  choose  ; 
but  no  further,  observe !  If  the  temperature  were  raised 
beyond  that,  the  mercury  would  begin  to  boil,  and  then, 
indeed,  good-bye  to  steps  and  measured  degrees !  The  gen- 
tleman would  dance  so  fast  that  there  would  be  no  possi- 
bility of  seeing  anything,  to  say  nothing  of  his  flying  away ! 

Now  nothing  is  easier  than  to  use  the  thermometer. 
You  place  it  in  the  situation  where  you  want  to  measure 
the  heat,  and  the  mercury  goes  up  or  down  of  itself  until 
it  reaches  the  degree  which  corresponds  with  the  tem- 
perature of  the  place.  It  is  much  more  convenient  than 
your  mamma's  yard  measure,  which  has  to  be  moved 
about  over  the  stuff,  and  which  is  very  apt  to  slip  if  you 
do  not  hold  it  carefully.  Dressmakers  would  be  de- 
lighted to  have  a  measure  which  only  wanted  laying 
upon  the  material,  and  which  would  unroll  itself  and 
stop  short  just  at  the  proper  point.  And  this  kind  of 
office  the  thermometer  really  performs. 

We  will  suppose  to-day  to  be  the  30th  of  November. 
I  have  just  carried  the  thermometer  out  of  doors  j  the 
mercury  has  fixed  itself  at  the  second  degree  below  zero. 
This  tells  me  that  it  is  freezing  cold.  My  fingers  have 
told  me  so  already ;  but  exactly  to  what  extent  they 
could  not  say.  Just  now  in  the  room,  the  mercury  was 
at  the  15th  degree  above  zero,  thanks  to  the  stove  in 
which  we  have  a  good  fire.  In  summer-time  it  rises  to 
25,  26,  or  28  degrees.  I  once  saw  it  climb  as  high  as 
33  degrees  :  in  the  shade  of  course,  you  understand  ;  in 
the  sun  it  would  have  been  quite  another  affair.  Well ! 
there  was  a  universal  outcry  against  the  heat.  Grown- 
up young  ladies  whom  I  try  to  teach  all  sorts  of  things 


ANIMAL   HEAT.  187 

as  I  do  you,  pretended  that  it  was  impossible  to  work. 
Yet  I  should  find  a  still  greater  heat  inside  my  body,  if 
I  could  get  the  thermometer  there.  Have  no  fears,  how- 
ever ;  I  am  not  going  to  make  a  hole  in  it :  luckily  there 
is  one  already.  I  put  the  ball  of  mercury  into  my  mouth. 
And  now  I  can  almost  tell  without  looking.  The  mer- 
cury was  on  its  way  up  the  staircase  as  soon  as  I  took  the 
ball  in  my  hand — and  now  it  has  reached  the  37th  step. 

You  can  try  the  experiment  on  yourself,  but  I  fore- 
warn you  that  it  ought  to  be  rather  hotter  with  you  than 
with  me :  the  mercury  will  probably  rise  a  degree  higher. 
I  will  not  promise  that  in  your  grandpapa's  mouth  it 
may  not  sink  a  degree — but  that  will  be  all.  In  differ- 
ent mouths  it  has,  between  the  38th  and  36th  degree, 
room  for  the  play  of  a  little  variation,  but  it  can  no  more 
go  beyond  these  than  a  tethered  cow  can  get  beyond  the 
circle  made  by  her  cord  as  she  turns  round  the  stake. 
Go  round  the  world  with  your  thermometer,  pop  it  into 
everybody's  mouth,  wiping  it  if  you  choose  as  you  pro- 
ceed, you  will  always  find  the  mercury  on  guard.  Its 
tethering  cord  is  somewhat  elastic,  like  everything  else 
about  us  ;  but  if  by  any  accident  it  should  exceed  its 
limit  by  even  one  degree  above  or  below,  it  would  be 
quite  as  extraordinary  as  meeting  a  giant  of  eight  feet, 
or  a  dwarf  of  three — which  one  does  see  occasionally, 
although  the  standard  of  human  height  varies  generally 
round  the  centre  of  five  feet. 

Since  there  is  a  fire  always  kept  burning  within  us, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  comprehending  why  our  bodies 
always  keep  warm.  Of  course,  however,  the  fire  must 
be  kept  brighter  in  winter  than  in  summer,  but  people 
have  no  need  to  be  told  so.  Nature  provides  for  the  ne- 
cessity. She  gives  us  more  appetite  in  cold  than  in  hot 
weather ;  not  that  we  can  perceive  much  difference  in 


188  ANIMAL   HEAT. 

ourselves  in  this  respect  from  winter  to  summer  ;  for  our 
bodies  stick  to  their  accustomed  habits,  and  call  out 
pretty  loudly  for  the  same  daily  rations,  though  without 
having  the  same  need  of  them.  In  order  to  estimate 
fairly  the  connexion  which  exists  between  the  internal 
need  of  food — i.  e.,  of  combustible  matter — and  the  ex- 
ternal temperature,  we  must  compare  the  Hindoo,  who 
lives  on  a  pinch  of  rice  a  day,  between  the  tropic  and 
the  equator,  with  the  Esquimaux,  who,  to  keep  up  his  37 
degrees  of  heat,  beyond  the  polar  circle,  in  a  country 
where  European  travellers  have  seen  mercury  freeze, 
sometimes  swallows  from  ten  to  fifteen  pints  of  whale-oil 
at  a  sitting !  Just  fancy  ivhale-oil !  which  is  much  nastier 
than  even  cod-liver  oil,  if  you  ever  tasted  that ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  a  thorough  combustible,  and  the  poor 
people  are  not  so  very  particular  :  come  what  will,  the 
fire  must  be  kept  up,  and  that  briskly.  But  without 
going  thus  into  extremes,  a  friend  of  mine  once  told  me 
that  in  Portugal,  the  land  of  oranges,  it  is  not  uncommon 
to  see  gentlemen  and  ladies  (that  is  to  say,  those  who 
can  eat  and  drink  what  they  please)  dine  standing,  in 
five  minutes,  on  a  bit  of  bread  and  whatever  else  may  be 
handy.  Propose  this  system  to  the  inhabitants  of  our 
colder  and  damper  climate,  whose  very  young  ladies,  fair 
and  delicate-looking  as  they  are,  need  a  helping  of  good 
roast-beef  for  dinner  to  keep  life  in  them,  and  they 
would  only  laugh  at  you.  But  those  who  were  well  in- 
structed could  go  on  to  inform  you  that  the  chilly  at- 
mosphere of  northern  countries  creates  the  necessity  for 
a  more  active  internal  fire  than  is  ever  needed  under  the 
burning  sun  of  Portugal,  and  that  a  mouthful  of  bread 
per  day  will  not,  in  their  case,  suffice  to  maintain  the 
appointed  thirty-seven  degrees  of  heat. 
For  the  same  reason,  Spaniards  drink  water,  and  are 


ANIMAL   HEAT.  189 

satisfied  ;  whereas  English  wine-merchants  add  brandy 
to  a  good  many  foreign  wines,  or  they  would  be  quite 
unacceptable  from  being  deficient  in  combustible.  It  is 
for  the  same  reason,  also,  that  Russians  can  swallow, 
without  wincing,  bumpers  of  brandy  which  would  kill  a 
Provencal  outright :  and  that  the  Swedish  Government 
has  no  end  of  trouble  to  keep  the  country  people  from 
converting  into  brandy  the  corn  that  ought  to  go  to  the 
miller  ;  whilst  the  Mohammedan  Arabs  accept  without 
difficulty  that  precept  of  the  Koran  which  forbids  the 
use  of  wine  and  spirituous  liquors.  It  is  easy  for  the 
Arabs,  who  are  kept  warm  by  their  climate,  to  do  with- 
out brandy.  It  is  less  easy  for  the  Swedes,  who  are 
surrounded  by  cold. 

All  this  comes  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  we  do  the 
same  thing  ourselves,  without  being  unusually  sagacious. 
In  January,  when  the  thermometer  goes  down  to  twelve 
or  fifteen  degrees  below  zero,  I  put  more  fuel  into  my 
stove  than  I  am  doing  to-day,  with  only  two  degrees  of 
cold  to  bear  with.  There  is  nothing  surprising  in  all  this. 

The  wonderful  thing  is,  that  when  an  Englishman 
goes  to  India,  he  takes  his  roast  beef  and  his  spirits 
with  him,  and  in  a  temperature  of  more  than  thirty  de- 
grees of  heat,  quietly  heaps  up  fuel  in  his  stove,  just  as 
if  he  was  in  England,  or  nearly  so.  You  think  he  will 
set  fire  to  the  house,  perhaps.  But  no.  Send  the  ther- 
mometer to  his  mouth  for  information,  and  it  will  only 
mark  down  thirty-seven  degrees  ;  neither  more  nor  less 
than  in  the  mouth  of  a  rice-eater !  The  stove  has  more 
sense  than  its  owner.  It  only  burns  just  what  hydrogen 
and  carbon  it  wants,  and  takes  no  more  trouble  about 
the  remainder  than  if  it  had  not  been  eaten. 

How  about  the  remainder,  then  ?  you  ask ;  if  it  is  not 
consumed  for  use,  what  becomes  of  it  ?  Do  you  remem- 


190  ANIMAL   HEAT. 

ber,  my  dear  child,  that  long  ago,  after  explaining  the 
office  of  the  bile  and  the  liver,  I  put  off  telling  you  what 
the  bile  consisted  of^  until  we  had  talked  about  the  lungs 
and  respiration  ?  Well,  the  time  has  come  now  ;  so  listen. 

The  hydrogen  and  carbon  which  is  not  consumed  by 
the  oxygen  in  the  blood,  is  seized  upon  by  the  liver,  who 
employs  it  in  the  manufacture  of  bile.  Therefore  the 
greater  the  amount  of  unemployed  hydrogen  and  carbon 
there  is  in  the  blood,  the  greater  is  the  quantity  of  bile 
manufactured  by  the  liver — that  is  all.  When  once  the 
body  has  attained  to  its  proper  degree  of  heat,  it  is  in 
vain  you  load  it  with  combustibles  •  it  will  not  get  any 
warmer,  do  what  you  will.  Only  you  will  have  cut  out 
so  much  extra  work  for  the  liver,  and  the  poor  wretch 
will  have  to  get  through  it  as  he  can.  Accordingly, 
what  happens  in  the  long  run  to  our  great  eaters  and 
drinkers,  whether  in  India  or  elsewhere  ?  The  bile- 
manufacturer,  overwhelmed  with  work,  gets  worn  out 
at  last,  and  kicks  ;  and  people  come  home  with  that 
miserable  disease,  which  is  called  the  "  liver-complaint." 

This  is  one  explanation  of  that  wonderful  uniformity 
of  temperature  which,  happily,  human  'imprudence  can- 
not disturb.  But  the  blood  has  a  second  resource  for 
getting  rid  of  its  superfluity  of  hydrogen  and  carbon, 
and  herein  especially  is  displayed  the  beautiful  foresight 
with  which  everything  about  us  has  been  prearranged. 
We  are  told  that  wolves,  when  they  get  hold  of  a  larger 
piece  of  meat  than  they  care  to  eat  at  the  moment,  carry 
off  what  they  do  not  want  to  some  corner  and  bury  it 
in  the  ground,  whence  they  get  it  again  when  their  hun- 
ger returns.  Dogs  sometimes  do  the  same  ;  and  the 
blood  has  a  similar  instinct.  Listen  attentively,  for  this 
is  very  interesting. 

I  light  a  candle  and  you  see  a  bright  flame,  which 


ANIMAL   HEAT.  191 

mil  last  as  long  as  there  is  any  tallow  below  the  wick. 
Can  you  tell  me  what  it  proceeds  from  ? 

Nay,  do  not  laugh  at  the  question  ;  it  is  quite  to  the 
purpose,  I  assure  you. 

We  know,  do  we  not,  that  the  substances  which  burn 
best  are  those  which  are  full  of  hydrogen  and  carbon  ? 
Tallow,  then,  is  one  of  those  substances.  But  tell  me 
further,  if  you  please,  what  is  tallow  ? 

Tallow  is  mutton  fat,  allow  me  to  say,  if  you  never 
heard  it  before. 

Now  comes  the  question,  who  provided  the  sheep's  fat 
with  such  a  quantity  of  hydrogen  and  carbon  as  to 
qualify  it  for  making  candles  ? 

The  sheep's  blood  undoubtedly,  since  blood  is  the  pur- 
veyor-general of  living  bodies — of  the  sheep's  body  as 
well  as  of  our  own. 

But  how  came  it  that  the  sheep's  blood  had  so  large  a 
stock  of  these  materials  ? 

Undoubtedly,  again,  because  there  was  more  of  them 
in  the  food  the  sheep  had  eaten  than  the  oxygen  was 
able  to  consume  or  the  liver  to  employ.  In  short,  the 
sheep  has  lungs  and  a  bile-manufactory,  as  we  have  ; 
oxygen  performs  the  same  office  for  it  as  for  us.  What 
takes  place  in  its  body  in  the  matter  of  respiration  is  an 
exact  counterpart  of  what  happens  in  ours,  and  the  his- 
tory of  its  fat  is  simply  the  history  of  our  own. 

Now  do  you  think  it  is  for  our  sakes  that  the  sheep's 
blood  deposits  its  fat  in  little  pellet-like  morsels  through- 
out the  body  ;  do  you  suppose  the  poor  creature  works 
in  this  manner  merely  to  have  the  honor  of  providing  us 
with  candles  ?  It  is  not  likely.  I  was  talking  about 
the  wolf  just  now  ;  but  there  is  no  need  to  look  beyond 
ourselves.  In  many  poor  people's  cottages  there  is  some- 
where an  old  earthen  pot  in  which  the  savings  of  each 


192  ANIMAL   HEAT. 

day  are  carefully  put  by,  penny  by  penny,  as  a  last  re- 
source in  time  of  need.  Should  a  wicked  thief  succeed 
in  murdering  the  owner  and  laying  hold  of  the  treasure, 
he  will  squander  in  a  few  hours  of  brilliant  revelry  the 
precious  hoard  so  slowly  got  together  as  a  provision  for 
possible  needs.  And  this  is  what  man  does,  when  he 
kills  the  sheep  and  takes  its  fat  to  make  candles  of!  The 
poor  animal's  blood  knew  well  that  bad  times  might 
come,  that  grass  might  fail,  and  the  combustible  matter 
conveyed  into  the  body  become  insufficient  to  maintain 
its  thirty-nine  or  forty  degrees  of  heat  (which  is  the 
sheep's  measure,  who  is  rather  hotter  than  we  are).  „  So 
it  quietly  laid  up  its  surplus  stock  of  combustible  so 
conveniently  brought  to  hand,  and  destined  to  be  burnt 
little  by  little  in  the  depths  of  the  organs,  should  times 
of  scarcity  arise.  But  here  steps  in  man,  the  universal 
thief  of  Nature,  and  turns  it  into  a  beautiful  flame,  re- 
gardless of  cost,  and  burns  in  one  evening  what  his  vic- 
tim had  been  economizing  for  so  long.  To  burn  for 
burning's  sake,  however,  has  always  been  the  fate  of 
tallow,  the  only  difference  being  in  the  way  it  is  done. 
Like  the  poor  man's  clumsy  pence,  which  were  put  by  to 
be  spent  some  day  or  other,  only  in  another  manner.  It 
is  worth  noting  here,  that  some  of  the  Russian  soldiers 
who  were  in  France  in  1815  had  a  very  good  idea  of  re- 
storing candles  to  their  original  destiny.  As  children 
of  the  north,  driven  to  get  fire  wherever  they  could, 
they  ate  all  the  candle-ends  they  could  lay  hold  of,  pre- 
ferring to  burn  the  tallow,  sheep's  fashion,  inside  rather 
than  out ! 

Fat  is,  then,  the  savings'  bank  of  the  blood  ;  there  it 
deposits  its  savings,  and  there  it  can  always  find  them 
again  in  time  of  need.  Witness  the  fat  pig  described 
by  Liebig,  the  great  German  chemist,  which  having  been 


ANIMAL  HEAT.  193 

swallowed  up  by  a  landslip,  was  found  alive  at  the  end 
of  160  days.  Fat  was  out  of  the  question  there,  of 
course  ;  the  animal  weighed  ten  stone  less  than  before. 
We  will  take  the  illustrious  professor's  word  on  trust, 
but  were  a  few  days  subtracted  from  the  account  the 
case  would  still  be  a  splendid  example  of  the  resource 
which  blood  finds  in  fat  when  other  nourishment  fails  ; 
for  the  pig  had  certainly  been  breathing  during  the 
whole  160  days,  and  as,  in  all  probability,  he  moved 
about  much  slower  than  usual,  his  hydrogen  and  carbon 
fire  was  never  extinguished  for  a  single  instant ;  of  that 
I  am  perfectly  certain,  and  you  shall  soon  know  why. 
It  was  well  for  the  poor  fellow  himself  that  he  had  put 
by  his  provisions  in  time  of  plenty.  And  who  suffered  ? 
Why,  the  pig's  master,  who  had  looked  forward  with 
pleasure  to  the  rashers  of  bacon  he  should  cut  by  and 
by  from  the  stores  of  combustibles  in  his  larder.  For 
once  Master  Piggy  ate  his  own  bacon  himself! 

You  understand  now,  I  hope,  by  what  ingenious 
management  that  marvellous  stove,  called  an  animal, 
never  burns  too  much  fuel,  whatever  be  the  quantity  it 
is  supplied  with,  and  how,  on  the  other  hand,  it  has 
always  as  much  as  it  wants. 

I  have  now  to  explain  how  important  it  is  that  it 
should  always  have  enough,  and  that, this  is  not  merely  a 
question  of  heat  and  cold,  as  with  dining-room  stoves, 
but  one  of  life  and  death !  Cheer  up !  I  have  only  one 
more  word  to  say  about  Respiration,  and  when  you  have 
heard  it  you  will  appreciate  still  better  the  lesson  of 
economy  which  you  have  learnt  from  Nature  to-day. 


LETTER  XXIII. 

ACTION  OF  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  OKGANS. 

THE  first  time  we  talked  about  the  Blood,  my  dear 
little  pupil,  I  introduced  him  to  you  as  the  steward  of 
your  body,  and  what  a  steward  to  be  sure !  Always 
awake,  as  you  may  remember,  always  in  motion ;  his 
pockets  ever  full  of  the  materials  unceasingly  required 
by  the  indefatigable  builders  of  that  human  edifice  in 
which  it  has  pleased  God  to  house  your  dear  little  self. 
If  you  wish  really  to  understand  what  follows  now,  we 
must  carry  on  the  simile  a  little  further. 

A  steward  not  only  provides  the  workmen  with  ma- 
terials, but  gives  them  orders  as  well,  and  this  is  part 
of  the  blood's  business  also.  He  is  not  only  commissary- 
general,  but  whipper-in  of  the  whole  household,  and  be- 
sides the  care  of  giving  out  all  the  stores,  has  the  charge 
to  see  that  everything  is  properly  done.  The  unhappy 
men  who  purchase  prosperity  at  the  dreadful  cost  of 
maintaining  slavery,  pretend  that  their  slaves  would  do 
no  work  worth  looking  at,  were  there  not  always  some 
one  behind  them  with  a  whip  in  his  hand.  "Well,  our 
organs  are  slaves,  and  slaves  of  the  worst  sort.  They 
would  never  do  anything  at  all,  if  the  blood  were  not 
everlastingly  whipping  them  up  in  his  ceaseless  rounds. 
Let  him  come  to  a  stand-still  for  one  minute,  for  a  sec- 
ond even,  and  everything  stops  short ;  then  we  are  at 
once  in  the  castle  of  the  Sleeping  Beauty  in  the  wood. 
(194) 


ACTION  OF  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  ORGANS.    195 

But  perhaps  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  compare  our 
bodily  machine  to  a  violin — to  hit  upon  something  less 
dismal  than  slaves — a  violin  with  blood  for  its  bow.  As 
long  as  the  bow  runs  over  the  strings  the  violin  makes 
music  and  lives ;  when  the  bow  stops,  it  is  silent  and 
dies. 

You  have  never  yet  had  a  fainting  fit,  my  dear  child  ; 
it  rarely  happens  at  your  age.  But  you  may  possibly 
have  seen  somebody  faint;  or,  at  any  rate,  you  have 
heard  it  talked  about.  Do  you  know  what  takes  place 
in  such  cases  ?  Now  and  then,  in  consequence  of  some 
violent  emotion,  but  how  or  why  I  cannot  tell  you,  all 
the  blood  rushes  suddenly  back  towards  the  heart,  as 
during  an  earthquake  a  river  will  sometimes  flow  back 
towards  its  source,  leaving  its  bed  dry.  Thereupon  the 
face  turns  white,  as  if  to  give  notice  that  there  is  no 
longer  anything  red  below  the  skin.  The  organs,  no 
longer  stimulated  by  the  blood,  leave  off  work  alto- 
gether. The  brain  goes  to  sleep,  the  muscles  relax, 
consciousness  ceases,  and  you  behold  the  poor  body,  from 
which  the  soul  seems  to  have  departed,  give  way  on  all 
sides,  and  fall  to  the  ground  like  a  corpse.  This  is  not 
exactly  death,  but  it  is  yet  an  interruption  of  life.  It 
would  be  death  if  nature  did  not  get  the  upper  hand 
again,  and  send  back  the  deserter  to  his  post. 

I  may  remark  here  that  it  was  partly  on  this  account 
that  some  of  the  ancients  thought  the  soul  was  seated 
in  the  blood  ;  not  a  bad  idea  for  people  who  were  de- 
termined to  pronounce  where  the  soul  was,  when  it  is  so 
easy  to  say  one  knows  nothing  about  it.  But  those  who 
placed  it  in  the  breath,  and  who  have  bequeathed  to  us 
those  beautiful  expressions — yielding  up  the  last  breath 
— giving  up  the  ghost — were  not  wrong  neither. 

In  point  of  fact  the  blood  is  not  the  soul  of  the  body  ; 


196    ACTION  OF  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  ORGANS. 

in  other  words,  does  not  keep  the  body  alive,  otherwise 
than  by  keeping  up  unceasingly  and  everywhere  that 
magic  fire  of  which  we  were  talking  last  time. 

The  French  people,  in  their  picturesque  language, 
have  found  an  expression,  full  of  energy,  to  express  the 
action  exercised  by  the  master  workman,  who  knows 
how  to  make  his  people  work  :  "  11  vous  met  le  feu  sous 
le  ventre"*  This  is,  to  the  letter,  the  process  employed 
by  the  blood  to  make  the  organs  work.  It  makes  a  fire 
under  the  belly.  Unhappily  their  work  only  lasts  as 
long  as  the  fire  which  causes  the  heat,  and  which  is  so 
necessary  to  life  that  it  is  almost  confounded  with  it. 
It  is  the  sacred  fire  of  the  Roman  Yestals,  which  must 
be  fed  night  and  day  under  pain  of  death  should  it  go 
out.  Now,  if  to  feed  the  sacred  fire  of  life,  it  be  ne- 
cessary that  the  blood  should  everywhere  find  hydrogen 
and  carbon  unattached,  that  is  to  say,  free  and  ready 
to  unite  themselves  to  oxygen,  it  is  no  less  necessary 
that  he  should  bring  oxygen  with  him  everywhere. 
Else  there  would  be  no  marriage,  and  therefore  no  fire. 
Qxygen  is,  then,  the  talisman  which  brings  the  organs 
to  obedience.  Without  oxygen  he  would  be  a  slave- 
driver  without  his  whip  ;  his  orders  would  be  despised. 
If  the  organs  were  to  be  deluged  with  venous  blood — 
with  that  black  blood  which  has  lost  its  oxygen,  they 
would  not  stir  any  more  than  if  they  had  received  so 
much  water.  They  acknowledge  nothing  but  arterial 
blood — red  blood — blood  rich  in  oxygen.  That  is  what 
they  respect,  and  which  has  authority  over  them ;  the 
other  is  a  bankrupt  who  has  lost  his  credit  with  his 
cash ;  those  whom  he  fed  but  lately  now  laugh  in  his 

*  Literally,  he  puts  fire  under  their  Idlies;  but  here  signifying 
that  he  makes  it  so  hot  that  the  organs  are  compelled  to  continue 
in  motion. 


ACTION  OF  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  ORGANS.    197 

face.  And  as  our  good  steward  spends  all  his  oxygen 
every  time  he  goes  his  rounds,  it  would  soon  be  over 
with  him,  and,  consequently,  with  us,  too,  if  he  had  not 
some  method  of  replenishing  his  purse  after  each  jour- 
ney. Happily  the  lungs  are  the  inexhaustible  chest  to 
which  he  always  returns  to  renew  his  right  of  authority  ; 
that  is,  his  power  of  preserving  life.  "When  it  comes 
to  the  last  sigh,  the  last  effort  of  the  diaphragm  by  which 
the  chest  is  closed  forever,  we  must  bid  adieu  to  life.  In 
yielding  up  that,  we  have  in  very  truth  yielded  up  the 
ghost. 

This  is  no  joke,  as  you  see,  and  it  would  not  do  to  be 
caught  unprepared,  with  an  inexorable  necessity  hanging 
over  one,  which  never  allows  a  moment's  respite.  The 
blood  acts  like  a  reasonable  being,  therefore,  in  laying 
up  his  stores  of  combustible  in  reserve.  Moreover, 
whether  he  has  done  so  or  not,  the  fire  must  go  on  all 
the  same  ;  that  is  absolutely  necessary ;  and  if  he  has 
no  spare  fat  to  feed  it  with,  when,  from  any  cause,  the 
stomach  leaves  off  working,  he  makes  use  of  anything 
he  can  lay  his  hands  upon. 

I  know  a  story  on  this  subject  which  will  amuse  you. 

There  lived,  in  the  reign  of  Francis  I.  of  France,  an 
honest  countryman,  of  Perigord,  named  Bernard  Palissy. 
At  that  time  everybody  could  not  afford  to  have  earth- 
enware plates,  as  they  have  now.  It  was  a  manufacture 
of  which  only  the  Italians  had  the  secret,  and  Bernard, 
who  knew  something  of  the  matter,  from  being  a  glass- 
worker,  took  it  into  his  head  to  try  and  find  it  out 
entirely  by  himself.  So,  without  asking  anybody's  ad- 
vice, he  turned  potter,  built  ovens,  picked  up  wood  as 
he  could,  manufactured  his  first  pots,  whether  well  or 
ill,  made  a  beginning,  and  waited.  He  had  fifteen  or 
sixteen  years  of  it  before  he  succeeded  ;  fifteen  or  six- 


198    ACTION  OF  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  ORGANS. 

teen  years  of  ruinous  experiments,  which  would  have 
discouraged  a  less  sturdy  heart  than  his.  But  he,  after 
he  had  succeeded  in  picking  up  some  money  by  his 
church  windows,  returned  to  his  work  with  unconquer- 
able perseverance,  insensible  to  poverty,  deaf  to  the 
ridicule  of  neighbors,  and  unmoved  by  the  abuse  of  his 
wife,  who  was  furious,  as  you  may  suppose,  at  being 
forced  to  play  the  heroine  without  having  the  least  turn 
for  it.  And  one  fine  day  there  was  a  grand  uproar  in 
La  Chapelle-Biron  (that  was  the  name  of  his  village). 
"  Bernard  Palissy  has  gone  mad,"  said  everybody  ;  "  he 
is  burning  up  his  house  to  bake  his  pots."  And  upon 
my  word  it  was  true !  "Wood  happened  to  be  wanting 
while  a  batch  was  in  the  oven,  and  Bernard  having  begun 
by  using  up  the  garden  palisades,  took  next  the  large 
tables,  and  at  last  the  floor  of  the  house !  What  his 
wife  had  to  say,  I  leave  you  to  judge ;  as  for  him  he 
listened  to  nothing  ;  but,  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  insati- 
able furnace,  threw  in  one  thing  after  another,  caring 
only  for  the  risk  to  his  handiwork.  The  ceiling  would 
have  followed  the  floor  had  not  his  pots  been  suffi- 
ciently baked  without. 

And  thus,  and  thus,  does  the  blood,  when  combustible 
matter  fails  him !  He  demolishes  the  house,  and  throws 
it,  bit  by  bit,  into  the  fire.  The  fat  goes  into  it  natu- 
rally enough,  as  I  have  already  explained  to  you.  It 
is  the  fuel-store  of  the  house.  It  was  put  by  on  pur- 
pose, and  may  be  used  up  without  injury.  Then  comes 
the  turn  of  the  muscles  ;  more  useful  without  being  in- 
dispensable. Those  are  Bernard  Palissy's  palisades  ; 
one  may  contrive  to  do  without  them.  They  melt  away, 
so  to  speak,  after  a  few  days'  fast,  and  you  find  yourself 
what  people  call  "  nothing  but  skin  and  bone."  But 
then,  if  this  condition  is  prolonged,  and  the  exhausted 


ACTION  OF  THE  BLOOD  UPON  THE  ORGANS.    199 

flesh  cannot  supply  the  demand,  the  blood  does  not  hesi- 
tate a  moment.  He  boldly  falls  upon  the  most  impor- 
tant organs,  without  stopping  to  consider  ;  he,  too,  is 
devoted  solely  to  his  work,  and  that,  like  the  baking  of 
pots,  never  comes  to  an  end  by  being  completed  ;  if  ex- 
ternal help  does  not  arrive  in  time,  the  house  soon  be- 
comes uninhabitable,  and  life  slips  away.  The  man  dies 
of  hunger. 

But  in  the  same  way  that  poor  Bernard  Palissy  was 
in  reality  working,  all  the  time,  for  his  wife  and  children, 
whose  future  well-being  he  strove  for  as  the  final  end  of 
all  his  efforts,  though  at  the  risk  of  letting  them  sleep 
under  the  bare  heavens  ;  so  the  blood  was  laboring  up 
to  the  last  moment  for  that  very  life  which  he  at  last 
turned  out  of  doors  ;  and  the  work  of  destruction  which 
caused  its  final  departure  has  had  in  reality  the  effect 
of  prolonging  its  stay.  Without  it,  all  would  have  been 
over  long  before. 


LETTER   XXIV. 

THE  WORK   OF  THE   ORGANS. 

THUS  much  is  settled,  then.  It  is  the  blood  which  sets 
everything  in  motion  throughout  the  body.  The  organs 
are  idlers  who  would  do  nothing  but  for  him  ;  they  only 
work  when  goaded  on,  if  I  may  use  the  expression,  by 
that  fire — always  on  the  point  of  going  out — which  he 
is  perpetually  coming  back  to  rekindle,  thanks  to  the 
oxygen  he  carries  with  him  from  the  lungs. 

This  will  enable  me  to  explain  many  things,  which, 
although  not  new  to  you,  you  have  probably  never  tried 
to  account  for  before. 

To  begin  with  :  do  you  remember  what  happened  to 
you  the  other  day ,« when  you  tried  to  overtake  your  mis- 
chievous brother  in  running,  and  he,  taking  advantage 
of  his  school-boy  legs,  led  you  mercilessly  through  all 
the  garden  walks,  without  having  the  grace  even  to  let 
you  catch  him  at  the  end  ?  You  were  quite  out  of  breath  ; 
your  heart  beat  so  rapidly  it  almost  hurt  you  ;  and  you 
were  so  hot  that  the  perspiration  poured  in  great  drops 
down  your  face,  so  that  your  mamma,  quite  frightened, 
took  you  up  in  her  arms  and  carried  you  to  the  fire  ;  for 
the  coolness  of  evening  was  coming  on,  and  a  little  girl 
drenched  with  perspiration  is  soon  chilled. 

Tell  me  now,  what  connection  was  there  between  your 
overrunning  yourself  in  a  race  and  the  extraordinary 
degree  of  heat  which  came  over  you  so  soon  ?  Your 
(200) 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  ORGANS.  201 

cheeks  were  cool  and  fresh  when  you  began  to  run ; 
what  made  them  so  red  all  at  once,  and  especially  at  a 
moment  when  the  air  was  cool  and  fresh  in  the  garden  ? 

You  open  your  eyes  in  surprise ;  you  had  never 
thought  of  this.  No !  that  is  just  the  way  with  little 
girls.  They  run  ;  they  get  hot ;  it  seems  as  natural  as 
warming  oneself  in  the  sun,  and  thoy  never  ask  why  it 
is  so. 

Yet  you  could  almost  tell  me  the  *  why  "  yourself,  if 
you  stopped  to  think  about  it,  now  that  you  are  what 
your  school-boy  brother  would  say  "  tip  to  a  thing  or 
two  ;"  but  to  save  time,  I  will  help  you. 

You  run  as  a  bird  flies,  without  thinking  about  it. 
Nevertheless,  if  you  could  see  wit'\  a  magic  glass  all 
that  takes  place  in  your  body  whik  those  active  little 
feet  are  carrying  it  like  a  feather  across  the  garden,  you 
would  be  perfectly  amazed.  One  of  these  days,  when 
we  have  finished  our  present  history,  I  will  tell  you  that 
other  one,  which  is  equally  worth  the  trouble.  It  k 
enough  for  the  present  to  know,  that  a  very  complicated 
piece  of  work  is  being  carried  on  there,  in  which  almost 
all  the  muscles  of  the  body  take  part  at  the  same  time, 
contracting  and  relaxing  in  turn,  like  so  many  springs, 
of  which  each  either  drives  forward  or  holds  back  a 
part  of  the  machine.  In  fact,  while  your  eyes  and 
thoughts  are  fixed  on  the  butterfly  which  is  flitting  away 
from  you  through  the  air,  there  is  going  on  within  you 
such  an  unheard-of  outlay  of  efforts  as  could  never  be 
got  out  of  our  idlers  if  the  terrible  steward  did  not 
lash  them  severely. 

Now,  his  lash,  as  we  have  said  often  enough,  is  that 

eternal  fire,  the  materials  of  whic*h  he  conveys  to  all 

parts  of  the  body.     On  those  special  occasions,  therefore, 

he  is  obliged  to  make  his  fire  burn  much  more  briskly 

9* 


202  THE  WORK   OF   THE   ORGANS. 

than  usual — exactly  like  railway  engine-drivers,  who 
increase  the  heat  of  their  fire  to  get  up  steam  in  propor- 
tion to  the  speed  they  wish  to  go. 

From  this  you  will  understand  that  it  is  no  great  won- 
der that  your  small  frame  should  get  heated  from  such 
work  as  racing  and  chasing  ;  and  that  if  you  pursue  it 
too  long,  the  perspiration  which  comes  out  all  over  you 
is  sufficiently  explained. 

This  is  not  all,  however.  The  fire,  whose  strength 
has  to  be  increased,  naturally  requires  a  larger  amount 
of  combustible  matter  than  before,  and  forasmuch  as 
there  is  only  a  certain  fixed  quantity  in  each  drop  of 
blood,  whenever  the  muscles  want  more  than  usual,  the 
blood  itself  must  flow  to  them  in  greater  abundance. 
Now  if  it  were  a  question  of  supplying  only  one  part 
of  the  body  (as  it  is,  you  may  remember,  of  supplying 
the  stomach  during  the  progress  of  digestion),  he  might 
contrive  to  accomplish  his  task  there  by  neglecting  it 
elsewhere,  and  overflow  one  organ  at  his  ease,  at  the 
expense  of  all  the  rest.  But  in  this  case  he  is  wanted 
everywhere  in  the  same  abundance.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  taking  one  muscle's  share  for  the  benefit  of  another. 
From  one  end  of  the  body  to  the  other,  all  want  to  be 
deluged  at  once.  And  remember  that  these  exigencies 
do  not  bring  a  drop  more  blood  into  the  body.  How 
is  he  to  get  out  of  his  difficulty  then,  this  overwhelmed 
steward  of  ours  ?  Well !  just  as  your  mamma  manages, 
my  dear,  when  there  is  more  to  do  than  usual  in  the 
house ; — by  running  quicker  than  ever  from  the  cellar 
to  the  garret,  and  from  your  room  to  your  papa-'s !  That 
is  called  doubling  oneself ;  and  this  gallant  blood  doubles 
itself  to  some  purpos'e.  He  runs  and  runs  and  runs,  ar- 
rives in  hurried  streams,  and  returns  full  gallop,  passing 
and  repassing  through  the  heart,  which  empties  and  fills 


THE  WORK   OF  THE   ORGANS.  203 

itself  in  sudden  jerks.  Unluckily,  the  poor  heart  is  a  deli- 
cate sort  of  person,  who  does  not  like  having  his  habits 
disarranged,  and  this  forced  work  soon  makes  him  desper- 
ate. The  other  day,  in  his  despair,  he  knocked  with  all 
his  strength  against  the  walls  of  his  little  chamber,  to 
warn  his  young  mistress  that  he  could  bear  no  more, 
and  that  they  were  both  of  them  in  danger.  In  fact,  you 
ought  to  know  that  if  one  was  infatuated  enough  to  go 
on  running  too  long,  one  might  die  of  it.  When  you 
learn  ancient  history,  you  will  probably  be  told  of  what 
happened  to  the  soldier  of  Marathon,  who  flew  like  an 
arrow  from  the  field  of  battle  to  the  gates  of  Athens, 
that  he  might  tell  his  fellow-citizens  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
earlier,  that  his  country  was  saved  ;  and  he  fell  dead  on 
his  arrival. 

But  it  is  not  the  heart  only  which  suffers  by  this  mad 
career  of  the  blood.  During  each  journey  it  performs 
it  passes  through  the  lungs,  which  in  their  turn  are  forc- 
ed to  play  with  hasty  jerks.  And  this  is  well  for  our 
good  steward ;  for  the  lungs,  filling  with  air  at  each 
descent  of  the  diaphragm  (if  you  remember  what  we 
have  said  before),  more  air,  and  consequently  more  oxy- 
gen, comes  in,  and  the  blood  has  by  this  means  a  larger 
stock  on  hand,  ready  to  help  him  out  in  the  unusual 
w^te  which  is  just  then  going  on  in  the  muscles.  I 
spoke  just  now  of  railway  steam-engines.  See  how  self- 
supporting  ours  is!  The  greater  the  amount  of  fire 
wanted,  the  faster  the  blood  flows  ;  and  the  faster  the 
blood  flows,  the  oftener  does  the  coffer  re-fill  itself,  whence 
comes  the  supply  of  oxygen  requisite  for  keeping  up  tho, 
fire.  All  this  go£s  on  at  once,  by  one  impulse,  and  the 
balance  between  the  receipts  and  expenditure  settles  it- 
self of  its  own1  accord.  How  thankful  many  families 
would  be  if  their  money-chest  would  but  fill  itself  in  the 


204          THE  WORK  OP  THE  ORGANS. 

same  way  —  in  exact  proportion  as  they  spend  the 
cash !  There  is  only  one  slight  drawback,  which  is> 
that  the  diaphragm  gets  tired  with  the  unaccustomed 
gallop  it  is  thus  forced  into.  It  falls  into  convulsions, 
therefore,  like  its  neighbor  the  heart,  and  the  breathing 
is  stopped,  from  having  been  driven  too  rapidly.  An 
excellent  example  for  people  who  want  to  spend  too 
much  at  once ;  showing  that  Nature  herself  cries  out 
against  it,  even  when  the  only  thing  wanted  is  atmos- 
pheric air. 

Now,  run  if  you  dare !  And,  to  tell  you  the  truth, 
it  would  be  a  great  pity  if  you  did  not  dare  ;  for  our 
good  God  has  made  little  children  for  running.  They 
have  nimbler  blood  than  we  older  grandfathers,  more 
elastic  lungs,  and  consequently  more  oxygen  to  spend  at 
a  time.  But  you  must  confess  that  it  is  a  great  pity  we 
should  run  all  our  lives  as  many  people  do,  without 
having  the  slightest  idea  of  these  admirable  contrivances, 
thanks  to  which  we  are  enabled  to  do  it.  We  can  run 
all  the  same,  it  is  true,  without  the  knowledge,  the  little 
child  as  easily  as  the  little  roebuck,  which  sets  a  similar 
machine  in  motion.  But  it  is  no  use  talking  about  the 
little  roebuck ;  it  cannot  learn  what  God  has  done  for 
it,  but  the  little  child  can,  if  he  will. 

Furthermore,  there  is  nothing  to  be  really  alarmed 
about,  for  those  great  commotions  only  occur  when  we 
have  committed  excess  ;  and  it  is  a  very  good  thing,  in 
a  general  way,  for  the  blood  to  give  us  a  stroke  of  his. 
lash  from  time  to  time.  I  told  you  lately  that  the  fire 
which  sets  the  organs  to  work  is  life  ;  and  it  is  no  mis- 
fortune to  be  a  little  more  alive  than  usual.  Besides 
which,  this  increased  activity  of  the  internal  fire  does 
not  serve  us  in  running  only.  Every  time  that  a  man 
makes  an  effort ;  every  time  he  lifts  a  weight,  or  handles 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  ORGANS.  205 

a  tool,  the  blood  rushes  forward  to  deluge  the  muscles 
that  are  thus  called  into  play ;  the  heart  beats  more 
quickly,  and  the  air  streams  in  greater  abundance  into 
the  lungs.  Look  at  a  man  chopping  wood.  If  the  log 
resists  too  much,  if  for  a  minute  or  two  the  man  has  to 
strike  blow  after  blow  without  stopping,  you  will  soon 
see  him  panting  for  breath,  just  as  if  he  had  been  run- 
ning a  race.  On  the  other  hand,  he  will  have  gained 
something  from  chopping  his  log  besides  the  right  of 
warming  himself  before  it  at  the  fire.  Blood  does  not 
carry  fire  only  into  the  muscles  ;  he  supplies  them  with 
nourishment  also,  does  he  not  ?  Every  drop  of  blood 
deposits  its  little  offering  as  it  goes  by,  and  consequently 
the  greater  the  number  that  pass  along,  the  richer  is  the 
harvest  for  the  muscle.  Look,  accordingly,  at  the  la- 
boring classes.  How  much  healthier  and  stronger  they 
are  than  those  who  do  not  work !  I  speak,  of  course, 
of  working  with  one's  limbs  generally  ;  for  those  poor 
girls  who  work  from  morning  to  night,  sitting  on  their 
chairs,  are  none  the  better  for  it,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
worse.  There  are  also  certain  worthy  fellows  who, 
like  myself  at  the  present  moment,  drive  a  pen  over 
sheets  of  paper  for  half  a  day  at  a  time,  whose  muscles 
never  get  any  bigger  for  it,  that  is  quite  clear.  More- 
over, one  condition  has  to  be  fulfilled,  which  unhappily 
is  not  always  done.  The  more  people  labor,  the  more 
they  ought  to  eat.  To  you,  who  have  just  been  look- 
ing at  the  drama  that  is  performed  in  the  body  every 
time  a  muscle  is  set  in  motion,  this  is  obvious  enough. 
There  is  no  fire  without  smoke,  says  the  proverb.  It 
would  have  been  much  better  to  have  said, — there  is 
no  fire  without  fuel ; — and  the  fuel  for  our  fire  is,  as 
you  know,  what  we  eat.  Try  if  you  can  get  one  stove 
to  burn  more  brightly  than  another,  if  you  have  put  less 


206          THE  WOKK  OF  THE  ORGANS. 

fuel  into  it.  Yet,  alas  !  this  is  what  many  poor  wretches 
are  obliged  to  do  but  too  often  ;  and  then  the  blood,  in- 
stead of  feeding  their  muscles,  consumes  them,  for  the 
reasons  I  gave,  in  telling  you  the  story  of  Bernard  Pal- 
issy.  Think  of  this,  oh  my  dear  child,  when  you  are 
grown  up,  and  never  grudge  those  who  work  for  you 
their  proper  share  of  food. 

Here  I  see  many  other  lessons  crowding  up,  out  of 
what  you  have  just  learnt. 

And  first  Nature  herself,  taken  as  you  find  her,  shows 
you  that  manual  labor  is,  for  us,  a  most  beneficial  con- 
dition of  existence  ;  that  it  brings  about  a  re-doubling^ 
an  exaltation  of  life  ;  and  that  consequently,  we  have  no 
need  to  look  down  upon  those  who  gain  their  bread, 
as  we  word  it,  by  the  sweat  of  their  brows.  I  told 
you  this  before,  in  speaking  of  the  hand,  which  is  of  so 
much  more  use  to  those  people  than  to  you  ;  and  I  re- 
peat it  now  for  another  reason,  viz. :  because  labor 
elevates  him  who  undertakes  it,  and  creates  a  real  physi- 
cal nobility.  Barbarians  in  old  times,  who  knew  nothing 
noble  nor  grand  but  war,  despised  labor,  and  left  it  to 
their  slaves  ;  so  much  so,  that  the  name  servile  labor, 
i.e.  the  labor  of  slaves,  has  stuck  to  it  in  some  places. 
As  for  war,  the  lot  of  the  ancient  nobility,  I  scarcely  dare 
to  say  much  against  it,  however  much  I  should  like  to 
do  so  on  some  accounts.  For,  after  all,  so  long  as  there 
are  ruffians  to  trample  on  the  weak,  one  is  only  too  glad 
to  find  brave  men  ready  to  risk  their  lives  in  keeping 
such  rascals  down :  so  long  as  there  are  wolves,  we 
must  needs  keep  shepherds'  dogs.  But  in  spite  of  every- 
thing, the  best  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  war  is,  that 
it  remains  a  sad  but  inevitable  necessity,  and  that  to  get 
rid  of  it,  more  is  wanting  than  the  wish.  What  a  con- 
trast to  labor — that  contest  of  Man  with  Nature  ; — that 


THE   WORK   OF   THE   ORGANS.  207 

merciful  and  fruitful  war,  where  victories  are  not  esti- 
mated like  other  victories,  by  the  number  of  the  slain  ; 
but  which,  on  the  contrary,  scatters  fresh  life  around  it, 
as  it  spreads  ;  fresh  life  in  the  laborer  himself,  by  the 
very  act  of  work,  fresh  life  around  him  without,  by  the 
fruits  that  work  produces ! 

Between  the  man  who  dies  in  slaying  others,  and  the 
man  who  keeps  others  alive  by  living  longer  himself, 
it  seems  cruel  to  make  invidious  comparisons  ;  but  if  it 
be  just  to  honor  the  first  out  of  respect  for  the  cause 
he  has  defended,  whenever  that  cause  is  respectable — it 
is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  not  less  just  to  do  equal  honor 
to  the  second. 

But  let  us  come  down  from  these  philosophic  heights, 
and  return  to  you,  dear  child  ;  to  you,  who  have  nothing 
to  do  with  war,  its  massacres  or  its  laurels. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  you  have  nothing  to  do  either, 
with  chopping  wood,  and  I  am  not  asking  you  to  un- 
dertake any  such  thing.  But  in  the  life  of  a  woman,  from 
the  time  of  her  childhood  upwards,  a  thousand  things 
arise  for  the  hands  to  do,  and  the  question  is,  how  often 
you  are  likely  to  feel  ashamed  of  not  sending  for  the 
servants  to  do  them?  Avoid  this  false  and  fatal  idea 
as  much  as  possible.  The  work  of  the  hands  dishon- 
ors no  one ;  it  is  honorable.  To  cast  it  aside  alto- 
gether is  to  make  yourself  smaller  instead  of  greater  ; 
to  deprive  yourself  of  one  of  the  glories  and  the  joys 
of  life.  If  a  good  thing  is  set  before  you  at  dinner, 
do  you  send  for  the  servants-to  eat  it?  If  an  occasion 
arises  for  making  the  blood  circulate  more  rapidly  in 
your  veins,  and  of  increasing  the  strength  and  life  with, 
in  you  into  the  bargain,  why  make  them  a  present  of 
it  ?  Especially  when  it  cannot  be  an  agreeable  present, 


208  THE  WORK  OF  THE   ORGANS. 

considering  that  good  servants  have  plenty  of  such  op- 
portunities from  morning  to  night  every  day. 

There  was  once  upon  a  time  a  Persian  prince  staying 
in  Paris,  who  was  taken  to  a  very  fashionable  ball,  that 
he  might  see  a  specimen  of  European  civilization.  I 
am  not  talking  about  a  prince  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights  j )} 
mine  lived,  I  believe,  in  the  time  of  Louis  Philippe.  The 
beautiful  dancers  wheeled  round,  their  eyes  brilliant  with 
pleasure,  in  the  arms  of  elegant  cavaliers  ;  one  would 
have  said  that  the  whole  of  this  airy  troop,  swaying 
to  and  fro  in  time  to  the  lively  flourishes  of  the  music, 
was  animated  by  one  soul ;  everything  seemed  full  of 
joy  in  that  large  and  splendidly  lit  hall,  and  mothers 
secretly  envied  their  daughters  as  they  passed  and  re- 
passed  before  them.  Our  oriental  alone  scanned  with 
a  disdainful  eye  this  youthful  enjoyment. 

When  it  was  ended, — "  How  is  this  ?  "  said  he  to  his 
conductor  ;  "  did  you  not  tell  me  that  I  was  to  see  here 
the  most  distinguished  families  of  Paris  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  replied  the  other  j  "  among  those  young 
ladies  who  were  just  now  dancing  before  you,  there  were 
at  least  twenty  of  the  grandest  heiresses  of  France." 

"Young  ladies  who  dance!  Come,  come!  In.  my 
country  we  have  dancers,  but  they  are  paid  for  it.  Our 
wives  are  never  permitted  to  dance  themselves.  That  is 
all  very  well  for  the  common  people ! " 

Remember,  when  needful,  the  contempt  of  this  Persian 
prince,  my  dear  child  ;  and  let  me  beg  of  you,  work  for 
yourself.  The  dance  of  labor  is  worth  quite  as  much 
as  that  of  the  ball-room,  when  you  give  your  heart  to 
it.  It  is  even  worth  more,  very  often  ;  and  next  time 
I  will  tell  you  why. 


LETTER  XXV. 

CARBONIC   ACID. 

WE  are  going  to  make  acquaintance  to-day  with  a 
new  personage,  who  well  deserves  our  attention.  It  is 
the  child  of  oxygen  and  carbon,*  though  not  in  the  same 
way  that  you  are  the  child  of  your  parents. 

To  tell  you  how  it  is  made  is  more  than  I  am  able. 
It  is  a  gas,  or  if  you  like  the  word  better,  it  is  an  air  ;  for 
when  we  say  "  gas,"  we  mean  "  air  ; "  only  it  is  always 
a  different  sort  of  air  from  the  air  of  the  atmosphere, 
which  learned  people  are  not  in  the  habit  of  calling  gas. 
I  cannot,  therefore,  show  you  carbonic  acid  itself,  for  it 
cannot  be  seen  any  more  than  the  air  which  fills  an 
empty  glass.  But  I  can  tell  you  where  there  is  some, 
and  you  even  probably  know  it  by  its  effects,  although 
you  have  never  heard  its  name. 

Do  you  remember,  on  your  aunt's  wedding-day,  that 
there  was  a  sparkling  wine  called  champagne,  at  the 
grand  breakfast  ?  You  smile,  so  I  conclude  somebody 
gave  you  a  little  to  taste  ;  and  if  so,  you  will  remember 
how  sharp  it  felt  to  your  tongue.  Do  you  remember, 
too,  how  the  cork  flew  out  when  they  were  opening  the 
bottle,  and  how  the  noise  of  the  "pop!"  startled  more 
little  girls  than  one  ?  It  was  carbonic  acid  which  sent 
the  cork  flying  in  that  wild  way ;  the  carbonic  acid  which 

*  This  is  the  name  learned  men  have  given  to  Charcoal. 


210  CARBONIC   ACID. 

was  imprisoned  in  the  bottle,  in  desperately  close  quar- 
ters with  the  wine,  and  which  accordingly  flew  out,  like 
a  regular  goblin,  the  moment  the  iron  wire  which  held 
down  the  cork  was  removed.  What  sparkled  in  the 
glass,  making  that  pretty  white  froth  which  phizzed  so 
gently,  as  if  inviting  you  to  drink,  was  the  carbonic  acid 
in  the  wine,  making  its  escape  in  thousands  of  tiny  bub- 
bles. What  felt  so  sharp  to  your  tongue  was  the  same 
carbonic  acid,  in  its  quality  of  acidity,  for  thence  it  has  its 
name ;  the  word  acid  being  borrowed  from  a  Latin  word 
signifying  the  sharp  pungent  taste,  almost  fine-pointed 
as  it  were,  peculiar  to  all  substances  which  we  call  acids. 

It  is  carbonic  acid  also  which  causes  the  froth  in  beer 
and  in  new  wine  when  bottled.  It  is  he  who  makes  soda- 
water  sparkle  and  sting  the  tongue,  and  ginger-beer  the 
same,  if  you  happen  to  like  it ;  and  so  far  you  have  no 
particular  reason  for  thinking  ill  of  him.  But  beware. 
It  is  with  him  as  with  a  good  many  others  who  have 
sparkling  spirits,  who  make  conversation  effervesce  with 
gayety,  and  who  are  very  seductive  in  society  when  you 
have  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  laugh  over  your  glass, 
but  whose  society  is  fatal  to  the  soul  which  delivers  itself 
up  to  them.  This  charming  carbonic  acid  is  a  mortal 
poison  to  any  one  who  allows  it  to  get  into  his  lungs. 

You  remember  what  a  violent  headache  your  servant 
suffered  from  the  other  day  after  ironing  all  those  clothes 
you  had  in  the  wash  ?  She  owed  that  headache  entirely 
to  this  work  which  she  did  for  you.  She  had  remained 
too  long  standing  over  the  coals  over  which  her  flat-irons 
were  being  heated.  You  know  already  that  when  char- 
coal burns,  it  is  from  the  carbon  uniting  with  the  oxygen 
of  the  air  ;  from  this  union  proceeds  that  mischievous 
child,  carbonic  acid  gas,  in  torrents,  and  the  poor  girl 
was  ill,  because  she  had  breathed  more  of  this  than  was 


CARBONIC   ACID.  211 

good  for  her  health.  Observe  well,  that  the  room-door 
was  open  to  let  in  the  fresh  air,  and  that  there  was  a 
chimney,  to  allow  the  carbonic  acid  to  escape.  It  was 
on  this  account  that  she  got  off  with  only  a  headache. 
Unhappily,  there  have  sometimes  been  miserable  people 
who,  weary  of  life,  and  knowing  this,  but  not  knowing 
or  thinking  about  the  God  who  overrules  every  sorrow 
for  good,  have  shut  themselves  up  in  a  room  with  a  bra- 
zier of  burning  charcoal,  after  taking  the  fatal  precau- 
tion of  stopping  up  every  opening  by  which  air  could 
possibly  get  in  ;  and  when  at  last,  in  such  a  case,  uneasy 
friends  have  forced  open  the  well-closed  door,  they  have 
found  nothing  within  but  a  corpse.  Then,  too,  there  are 
those  frightful  accidents  of  which  we  hear  so  often,  of 
workmen  groping  their  way  down  into  long  disused  wells, 
who  have  died  as  they  reached  the  bottom  ;  or  of  sudden 
deaths  in  coal-pits.  In  general  these  have  been  owing 
to  the  poor  victims  encountering  the  long  pent-up  car- 
bonic acid  gas,  whose  poisonous  breath  blasted  and  de- 
stroyed them  at  once. 

You  may  well  ask  why  I  am  telling  you  such  horrible 
stories,  and  what  I  am  coming  to  with  my  carbonic  acid  ? 
But  you  have  more  to  do  with  it  than  you  think,  dear 
child.  You,  and  I,  and  everybody  we  meet,  nay,  and  the 
very  animals  themselves,  since  their  machines  are  of  the 
same  sort  as  ours,  are  all  little  manufactories  of  carbonic 
acid.  The  thing  is  quite  clear.  Since  there  is  a  char- 
coal fire  lit  in  every  part  of  our  body,  there  always 
arises  from  the  union  of  the  oxygen  brought  by  the  blood 
with  the  carbon  it  meets  in  our  organs,  that  mischievous 
child  we  have  been  talking  about ;  and  our  throat  is  the 
chimney  by  which  he  gets  away.  He  would  kill  us  out- 
right were  he  to  stop  in  the  house. 

This  is  how  it  comes  about:   In  proportion  as  the 


212  CARBONIC   ACID. 

blood  loses  its  oxygen,  it  picks  up  in  exchange  the  car- 
bonic acid  produced  by  combustion,  so  that  it  is  quite 
loaded  with  it  by  the  time  it  returns  to  the  lungs.  There 
it  takes  in  a  fresh  supply  of  oxygen,  and  discharges  at 
the  same  time  its  overplus  of  carbonic  acid,  which  is 
driven  out  of  the  body  by  the  contractions  of  the  chest, 
pell-mell  with  the  air  which  has  just  been  made  use  of 
in  breathing.  You  are  aware  that  this  air  is  not  the 
same  at  its  exit  as  at  its  entrance  to  the  body,  and  that 
if  you  try  and  breathe  it  over  again  it  will  no  longer  be 
of  the  same  use  to  you.  That  is  because  it  has  lost  part 
of  its  oxygen  and  brings  back  to  you  the  carbonic  acid 
which  it  had  just  carried  off.  If  you  take  it  in  a  third 
time,  it  will  be  still  worse  for  you ;  and  in  case  you 
should  continue  to  persist — the  oxygen  always  diminish- 
ing, and  the  carbonic  acid  always  increasing  in  quantity 
-^-the  air  which  was  at  first  the  means  of  your  life  will 
at  last  become  the  cause  of  your  death.  Try,  as  an  ex- 
periment, to  shut  yourself  up  in  a  small  trunk,  where  no 
fresh  air  can  get  in  ;  or  even  in  a  narrow  closely-shut 
closet,  and  you  will  soon  tell  me  strange  news.  There 
will  bo  no  occasion  to  light  a  charcoal  fire  for  you  in 
there.  Enough  is  kept  burning  in  your  own  little  stove, 
and  you  will  poison  yourself. 

You  see  now  that  the  dreadful  stories  I  was  telling  a 
short  time  ago  have  something  to  do  with  you,  and  that 
it  is  a  good  thing  to  be  warned  beforehand.  And  now 
tell  me,  when  a  hundred  people — or  I  ought  to  say,  a 
hundred  manufactories  of  carbonic  acid — are  crowded 
together  for  a  whole  evening,  sometimes  for  a  whole 
night,  in  a  space  just  big  enough  to  allow  them  to  go  in 
and  come  out ;  tell  me,  I  say,  if  that  is  a  sort  of  thing 
which  can  be  beneficial  to  the  health  of  little  girls  whose 
blood  flows  so  fast,  and  who  require  so  much  oxygen  ; 


CARBONIC   ACID.  213 

and  whether,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  not  one's  duty  to  keep 
them  away  from  such  scenes  ? 

There  may  be  amusement  there,  I  know  ;  but  the  best 
pleasures  are  those  for  which  one  does  not  pay  too  dearly. 
I  have  seen  the  very  wax  lights  faint  and  turn  pale  all 
at  once,  in  the  very  midst  of  those  murderous  assemblies, 
as  if  to  warn  the  imprudent  guests  that  there  was  only 
just  time  to  open  the  windows. 

And  this  reminds  me  of  a  point  I  had  nearly  forgot- 
ten. Wax-candles  are  like  ourselves.  In  order  to  burn, 
they  must  have  oxygen,  and,  like  us,  they  are  extin- 
guished by  carbonic  acid.  But  like  us  also — and  indeed 
to  a  greater  extent,  because  they  consume  much  more 
charcoal  at  once  —  they  manufacture  carbonic  acid. 
Hence  that  very  illumination  which  affords  the  company 
so  much  pleasure  and  pride  is  plainly  an  additional  cause 
of  danger.  Each  of  those  wax-lights  which  is  spread 
around  with  such  a  prodigal  hand,  the  only  fear  being 
that  there  may  not  be  enough  of  them,  is  a  hungry  in- 
truder employed  in  devouring  with  all  his  might  the 
scanty  amount  of  oxygen  provided  for  the  consumption 
of  the  guests. 

From  each  of  those  cheerful  flames — the  suns,  as  it 
were,  of  the  festive  assembly — shoots  out  a  strong  jet  of 
carbonic  acid,  contributing  by  so  much  to  swell  out  the 
already  formidable  streams  of  poisoned  gas,  exhaled  to 
the  utmost  extent  by  the  dancers.  And  wait — there  is 
still  something  else  I  was  forgetting.  You  dance.  And 
I  told  you  last  time  at  what  cost  you  have  to  dance. 
You  have  to  make  the  fire  burn  much  quicker  than  usual, 
that  is,  to  consume  a  great  deal  more  oxygen  at  once, 
and  so  you  double  and  treble  the  activity  of  the  carbonic 
acid  manufacture  :  and  this  just  at  the  moment  when  it 
would  be  so  convenient  that  it  should  go  on  as  slowly 


214  CARBONIC   ACID. 

as  possible !  After  this,  you  need  not  be  surprised  that 
people  should  look  fagged  and  exhausted  next  morning. 
What  astonishes  me  is  that  they  are  not  obliged  to  lie 
in  bed  altogether,  after  treating  their  poor  lungs  to  such 
an  entertainment.  And  even  if  you  have  spared  your 
legs,  you  are  not  much  better  off,  as  you  are  sure  to  find 
out  in  time,  especially  if  the  thing  is  repeated  too  often. 

When  I  told  you  just  now  that  the  dance  of  labor  was 
worth  as  much  as  the  dance  of  the  ball-room,  was  I  right 
or  wrong  ?  What  do  you  say  yourself? 

I  could  repeat  the  same  of  theatres — places  of  enter- 
tainment specially  adapted  for  impoverishing  the  blood, 
and  ruining  the  health  of  the  happy  mortals  who  go 
there,  evening  after  evening,  to  purchase  at  the  door  the 
right  of  filling  their  lungs  with  carbonic  acid,  not  to 
speak  of  other  poisons.  You  must  see  clearly  that  such 
places  as  those  are  not  fit  for  little  lungs  as  dainty  as 
yours  ;  and  this  may  help  you  to  submit  with,  a  good 
grace  when  you  see  people  going  there  without  you. 
Grown-up  people  escape  moreover,  because  the  human 
machine  possesses  a  strange  elasticity,  which  enables  it 
to  accommodate  itself — one  scarcely  knows  how — to  the 
sometimes  very  critical  positions  in  which  its  lords  and 
masters  place  it  without  a  thought.  But  to  do  this,  it  is 
well  that  it  should  be  thoroughly  formed  and  estab- 
lished ;  for  you  run  a  risk  of  injuring  it  for  ever,  if  you 
misuse  it  too  early  in  life.  Tell  this  to  your  dear  school- 
boy brother,  when  he  wants  to  smoke  his  cigar  like  a 
man.  If  his  lungs  could  speak,  they  would  call  out  to 
him  that  it  was  very  hard  upon  them,  at  their  age,  to  be 
so  treated,  and  that  he  ought  at  any  rate  to  wait  till 
they  had  passed  their  examinations ! 

But  I  must  not  get  into  a  dispute  with  so  important 
an  individual,  by  throwing  stones  into  a  garden  which 


CARBONIC   ACID.  215 

is  not  under  my  care.  For  you,  my  dear  child,  the 
moral  of  this  day's  lesson — which  to  my  mind  is  much 
more  alarming  than  a  hobgoblin  tale,  since  it  concerns 
the  realities  of  every-day  life — is  clear  ;  and  it  is  this  : 
Seek  your  amusements  as  far  as  possible  in  the  fresh 
air.  In  the  summer,  when  the  lamp  is  lit,  bid  your 
mamma  a  sweet  good-night,  and  go  to  bed.  In  the  win- 
ter do  not  wait  till  there  is  a  great  quantity  of  carbonic 
acid  in  the  room  where  the  grown-up  people  are  sitting, 
before  you  retire  to  your  own  like  a  reasonable  girl, 
anxious  not  to  do  mischief  to  that  valuable  and  inde- 
fatigable servant,  the  poor  blood !  Not  to  mention  that 
if  she  were  to  injure  him  too  much,  she  would  have  to 
bear  his  grumbling  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  We  cannot 
change  him  as  we  change  other  servants. 


LETTER  XXVI. 

ALIMENTS  OF   COMBUSTION. 

WE  have  spent  a  very  long  time,  my  dear  child, 
over  the  little  fire,  which  goes  on  burning  secretly  in 
every  one  of  us,  quietly  devouring  what  little  girls  eat 
.with  such  a  good  appetite,  quite  unsuspicious  of  what 
they  are  doing  it  for.  However,  if  I  mean  to  finish  the 
history  of  our  mouthful  of  bread,  I  must  push  on  to  its 
last  chapter. 

The  whole  of  what  we  eat  is  not  burnt,  as  you  may 
easily  suppose ;  for,  if  it  were,  what  would  the  blood 
have  left  to  feed  the  body  with,  and  to  repair  in  due 
proportion  the  continual  destruction  or  waste  which 
goes  on  in  our  organs?  Our  food,  or  " aliments"  as  the 
general  collection  of  different  sorts  of  food  is  called, 
are  divided  into  two  very  distinct  sets  :  some,  which  are 
destined  to  be  burnt,  and  which  are  called  aliments  of 
combustion  •  others,  which  are  destined  to  nourish  the 
body,  and  which  are  called  aliments  of  nutrition.  I 
have  to  tell  you  now  about  these  last,  and  you  will  find 
their  history  by  no  means  uninteresting. 

Learned  men  having  detected,  beyond  the  possibility 
of  a  doubt,  the  existence  of  these  two  sorts  of  aliments, 
one  is  tempted  to  think  they  ought  to  have  made  it 
known  to  the  cooks,  and  that  ever  since  so  important  a 
discovery,  the  dishes  on  all  well-regulated  tables  should 
have  been  arranged  accordingly  ;  aliments  of  combustion 
(216) 


ALIMENTS   OF   COMBUSTION.  217 

on  one  side,  aliments  of  nutrition  on  the  other.  It  can- 
not be  enough  merely  to  give  your  guests  a  treat ;  you 
ought  to  provide  them  with  everything  necessary  for  the 
proper  fulfilment  of  the  claims  within  ;  and  if  you  give 
some  nothing  but  combustibles,  leaving  the  others  no 
share  of  fuel,  how  will  they  be  able  to  manage  ?  No- 
body thinks  about  this,  however ;  not  even  cooks,  to 
begin  with,  who,  as  far  as  fire  is  concerned,  find  they 
have  had  quite  enough  to  do  with  it  in  their  cooking  ; 
and  as  for  the  guests,  when  they  have  had  their  dinner 
they  go  away  satisfied,  as  a  matter  of  course,  quite  as 
well  provided  for  as  if  the  mistress  of  the  house  had 
made  her  calculations,  pen  in  hand,  while  writing  out 
the  bill  of  fare,  with  a  view  to  combustion  and  nutrition. 
Now,  how  is  that  ? 

It  is  because  the  two  sorts  of  aliments  are,  for  the 
most  part,  met  with  together  in  everything  we  eat,  so 
that  we  swallow  them  at  once  in  one  mouthful ;  and 
have  therefore  no  need  to  trouble  ourselves  further  on 
the  subject.  There  is  our  bit  of  bread,  for  instance. 
What  is  bread  made  of?  Of  flour.  Bread,  then,  must 
contain  all  that  was  previously  in  the  flour.  Yery  good. 
Now  I  will  teach  you  how  to  discover  in  flour  the  ali- 
ment of  combustion  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  aliment 
of  nutrition  on  the  other. 

Take  a  handful  of  flour,  and  hold  it  under  a  small 
stream  of  water  ;  knead  it  lightly  between  your  fingers. 
The  water  will  be  quite  white  as  it  leaves  it,  carrying 
away  with  it  a  fine  powder,  which  you  could  easily 
collect  if  you  were  to  let  the  water  run  into  a  vase, 
where  the  powder  would  soon  settle  to  the  bottom. 
That  powder  is  starch-^the  same  starch  as  washerwomen 
use  for  starching  linen,  and  which  our  grandfathers  em- 
ployed in  powdering  their  wigs.  3Tou  had  some  put  on 
10 


218  ALIMENTS   OP   COMBUSTION. 

your  own  hair  one  day  when  you  were  dressed  up  as  a 
court-lady  of  olden  time.  Now,  starch  is  an  excellent 
combustible.  People  have  succeeded,  by  means  which  I 
will  not  offer  to  detail  here,  in  ascertaining  almost 
exactly  what  it  is  made  of,  and  they  have  found  in  it 
three  of  our  old  acquaintances,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  and 
carbon,  combined  together  in  such  proportions  that  100 
ounces  of  starch  contain  as  follows  : 

Ounces. 

Carbon 45 

Hydrogen 6 

Oxygen 49 

100 

I  give  you  the  calculation  in  round  numbers,  so  as  not 
to  burden  your  memory  with  fractions  ;  and  I  will  do 
the  same  with  the  other  sums  I  shall  have  to  go  through 
to-day,  this  being,  let  me  tell  you,  an  arithmetical  day. 
Besides,  I  could  scarcely  take  upon  myself  to  warrant 
the  absolute  correctness  of  those  very  precise  fractions 
people  sometimes  go  into.  Even  our  learned  friends 
squabble  now  and  then  as  to  which  is  right  or  wrong 
over  the  100th  part  of  a  grain,  more  or  less,  in  making 
out  their  balance,  and  you  and  I  will  not  offer  to  decide 
between  them.  I  always  think  we  have  accomplished 
wonders  in  getting  even  near  the  mark,  and  with  their 
permission  we  will  stop  there. 

Starch,  then,  of  whose  weight  carbon  constitutes 
nearly  one-half,  is  of  course  a  first-rate  combustible. 
Indeed,  one  may  almost  consider  it  the  parent,  as  it 
were,  of  at  least  half  our  aliments  of  combustion,  for  if 
(in  consequence  of  a  certain  operation,  which  nature 
has  the  power  of  performing  for -herself,  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances) it  loses  a  portion  of  its  carbon,  so  that  there 
remain  but  36  ounces  of  it  in  the  100  of  starch,  our 


ALIMENTS   OF   COMBUSTION.  219 

starch  is  turned  into  something  else  ;  now  can  you  guess 
what  that  something  is  ?  Neither  more  nor  less  than 
sugar  !  Witness  the  grand  manufactories  at  Colmar,  in 
France,  where  bags  of  starch  are  converted  into  casks 
of  syrup  by  a  process  of  nature  alone  ;  so  that  the  in- 
habitants of  the  neighborhood  sweeten  their  coffee  at 
breakfast  with  what  might  have  been  made  into  rolls, 
had  it  been  left  alone.  And  this  is  not  all.  Give  back 
this  starch-sugar  into  the  hands  of  Nature  once  more  by 
putting  it  into  certain  other  conditions,  and  a  new  pro- 
cess begins  in  it.  About  a  third  of  its  carbon  will  unite 
itself,  of  its  own  accord,  with  the  two-thirds  of  its  oxy- 
gen, so  as  to  make  carbonic  acid,  (you  are  acquainted 
with  that  gentleman  now)  which  shall  fly  off  and  away, 
and  there  will  remain — what  do  you  think? — Alcohol, 
that  other  combustible  we  talked  about,  and  which  burns 
even  better  than  sugar  and  starch,  since  in  a  hundred 
ounces  it  contains  as  follows  : — 

Ounces. 

Carbon 53 

Hydrogen 13 

Oxygen 34 

100 

All  this  astonishes  you.  What  would  you  say  then  if  I 
were  to  tell  you  that  your  pocket-handkerchief  is  com- 
posed of  entirely  the  same  materials  as  starch,  and  in 
the  same  proportions  too,  and  that  if  a  chemist  were  to 
take  a  fancy,  by  way  of  a  joke,  to  make  you  a  tumbler 
of  sugar  and  water,  or  a  small  glass  of  brandy  out  of  it, 
he  could  do  so  if  he  chose.  Wonders  are  found,  you 
see,  in  other  places  besides  fairy  tales  ;  and  since  I  have 
begun  this  subject  I  will  go  on  to  the  end.  Know  then 
that  from  the  log  on  the  fire,  to  the  back  of  your  chair, 
everything  made  of  wood,  is  in  pretty  nearly  the  same 


220  ALIMENTS   OF   COMBUSTION. 

predicament  as  your  pocket-handkerchief ;  and  if  people 
are  not  in  the  habit  of  making  casks  of  syrup  and  kegs 
of  brandy  out  of  the  trees  they  cut  down  in  the  woods, 
it  is  only,  I  assure  you,  because  such  sugar  and  brandy 
would  cost  more  to  make  than  other  sorts,  and  would 
not  be  so  good  in  the  end.  Should  some  one  ever  invent 
and  bring  to  perfection  an  economical  process  for  doing 
it  thoroughly  well,  sugar-makers  and  spirit-distillers 
will  have  to  be  on  their  guard ! 

But  we  are  wandering  from  our  subject.  If  I  have 
allowed  myself  to  make  this  digression,  however,  it  is 
because  I  am  not  sorry  to  accustom  your  mind  early  to 
the  idea  of  those  wonderful  transformations  which 
nature  accomplishes,  and  of  which  I  could  give  you 
many  other  instances. 

To  return  to  our  flour.  As  soon  as  all  the  starch  is 
gone  out  of  it,  there  remains  in  your  hand  a  whitish, 
elastic  substance,  which  is  also  sticky  or  glutinous,  so 
that  it  makes  a  very  good  glue  if  you  choose ;  and 
hence  its  name  of  gluten,  which  is  the  Latin  word  for 
glue. 

When  dried,  this  gluten  becomes  brittle  and  semi-trans- 
parent. It  keeps  for  an  unlimited  time  in  alcohol,  putre- 
fies very  soon  in  water  exposed  to  the  air,  and  is  easily 
dissolved  in  a  wash  of  soda  or  potash.  Finally  100 
ounces  of  it  contain  as  follows  : — 

Ounces. 

Carbon 63 

Hydrogen 7 

Oxygen 13 

Nitrogen 17 

100 

Observe  the  last  material  named.  It  is  a  new  arrival, 
of  which  I  shall  soon  have  something  to  say. 


ALIMENTS   OP   COMBUSTION.  221 

But  where  am  I  leading  you  ?  you  will  ask,  with  all 
these  uninteresting  details  about  glue. 

'Wait  a  little  and  you  shall  hear. 

You  have  probably  never  seen  any  one  bled,  which  is 
a  pity,  as  it  happens  ;  for  if  you  had,  you  might  have 
noticed  (provided  you  had  had  the  courage  to  look  into 
the  basin),  that  after  a  few  seconds,  the  blood  which  had 
been  taken  away  separated  itself  of  its  own  accord  into 
two  portions  ;  the  one  a  yellowish  transparent  liquid, 
the  other  an  opaque  red  mass  floating  on  the  top,  and 
which  is  called  the  coagulum  of  the  blood  or  clot.  This 
coayulum  owes  its  color  to  an  infinity  of  minute  red 
bodies  of  which  we  will  speak  more  fully  by  and  by,  and 
which  are  retained  as  if  in  a  net,  in  the  meshes  of  a 
peculiar  substance  to  which  I  am  now  going  to  call  your 
attention. 

That  substance  is  whitish,  elastic  and  sticky ;  and 
when  dried  becomes  brittle  and  semi-transparent.  It 
keeps  for  an  unlimited  time  in  alcohol,  putrefies  very 
soon  in  water  exposed  to  the  air,  and  is  easily  dissolved 
in  a  wash  of  soda  or  potash,  Finally  100  ounces  of  it 
contain  as  follows  : — 

Ounces. 

Carbon, 63 

Hydrogen, 7 

Oxygen, 13 

Nitrogen, 17 

100 
This  substance  is  called  fibrine.    It  goes  to  form  the 

fibres  of  those  muscles  which  are  contained  in  a  half 

formed  state  in  the  blood. 
You  are  laughing  by  this  time  I  know,  and  I  also  know 

the  reason  why.    I  have  told  you  the  same  story  twice 

over.    You  have  not  forgotten  my  wearisome  descrip- 


222  ALIMENTS   OF   COMBUSTION. 

tion  of  gluten,  and  here  I  am,  saying  exactly  the  same 
thing  of  fibrine !  You  conclude  I  am  dreaming,  and 
have  made  a  mistake ! 

But  no,  I  am  wide  awake,  I  assure  you,  and  mean  what 
I  say.  And  if  these  details  are  the  same  in  the  two 
cases,  it  is  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  two  bodies  are 
one  and  the  same  thing  •  gluten  and  fibrine  being  in  re- 
ality but  one  substance,  so  that  were  the  most  skilful 
professor  to  see  the  two  together  dried,  he  would  be 
puzzled  to  say  which  came  from  the  flour,  and  which 
from  the  blood.  I  mentioned  that  our  muscles  existed 
in  a  half-formed  state  in  the  blood.  Here  is  something 
further.  The  fibres  of  muscles  exist  previously  in  full 
perfection,  in  the  bread  we  eat ;  and  when  you  make  lit- 
tle round  pills  of  the  crumbs  at  your  side,  it  is  composed 
of  fibres  stolen  from  your  muscles  which  enable  the  par- 
ticles to  stick  together  ;  and  I  say  stolen  from  your  mus- 
cles, because  they  are  the  gluten  which  you  ought  to  have 
eaten.  I  hope  the  thought  of  this  may  cure  you  of  a  fool- 
ish habit,  which  is  sometimes  far  from  agreeable  to  those 
who  sit  by  you. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  great  aliment  of  nutrition,  and 
you  may  make  yourself  perfectly  easy  about  the  fate  of 
those  who  eat  bread.  If  little  girls  should  now  and 
then  have  to  lunch  on  dry  bread,  I  do  not  see  that  they 
are  much  to  be  pitied.  There  is  the  starch  to  keep  up 
their  fire,  and  the  gluten  for  their  nourishment,  and  that 
is  all  they  require.  The  porter  above  is  the  only  one 
who  finds  fault.  And  in  these  days  porters  have  become 
more  difficult  to  please  than  the  masters  themselves. 

Then  as  to  babies  who  drink  nothing  but  milk,  you 
perhaps  wish  to  know  where  they  get  their  share  of 
fibrine. 

And  I  am  obliged  to  own  there  is  none  in  the  milk 


ALIMENTS  OF  COMBUSTION.  223 

itself;  but,  I  daresay,  you  know  curdled  milk  or  rennet? 
The  same  separation  into  two  portions  has  taken  place 
there  which  occurs  in  the  blood  when  drawn  from  the  arm ; 
underneath  is  a  yellowish  transparent  liquid, — that  is 
the  whey  /  above  a  white  curd  of  which  cheese  is  made, 
and  which  contains  a  great  part  of  what  would  have 
made  butter.  By  carefully  clearing  the  curd  from  all  its 
buttery  particles  you  obtain  a  kind  of  white  powder 
which  is  the  essential  principle  of  cheese,  and  to  which 
the  pretty  name  of  casein  is  given  because  caseus  is  the 
Latin  for  cheese.  I  shall  not  trouble  you  now  with  de- 
tails about  casein;  but  there  is  one  thing  you  ought  to 
know.  A  hundred  ounces  of  casein  contain  as  follows  : — 

Ounces. 

Carbon, 63 

Hydrogen, 7 

Oxygen, 13 

Nitrogen, 17 

100 

Exactly  like  gluten  and  fibrine  1 

Now,  then,  you  can  understand  that  no  particular 
credit  is  due  to  the  blood  for  manufacturing  muscles  out 
of  the  cheese  of  the  milk  which  a  little  baby  sucks. 
He  has  much  less  trouble  than  the  manufacturers  at 
Colinar  have  in  turning  their  starch  into  sugar  ;  because 
in  his  case  the  new  substance  is  not  only  composed  of 
the  same  materials  as  the  old  one,  but  contains  them  in 
exactly  the  same  proportion  also. 

We  have  a  second  aliment  of  nutrition,  you  see,  and 
I  must  warn  you  that  it  is  not  found  in  milk  only.  It 
exists  in  large  quantities  in  peas,  beans,  lentils,  and  kid- 
ney-beans, which  are  actually  full  of  cheese,  however 
strange  this  may  seem  to  you.  It  would  not  surprise 
you  so  much,  however,  if  you  had  been  in  China  and 


224  ALIMENTS   OP   COMBUSTION. 

Lad  tasted  those  delicious  little  cheeses  which  are  sold  in 
the  streets  of  Canton.  They  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  our  own.  Only  the  Chinese  (from  whom  we  shall 
learn  a  great  many  things  when  we  have  beaten  them 
so  that  they  will  conclude  to  be  friends  with  us) — the  Chi- 
nese, I  say,  do  without  milk  altogether.  They  stew  down 
peas  into  a  thin  pulp.  They  curdle  this  pulp  just  as  we 
do  milk,  and  in  the  same  way  they  squeeze  the  curd  well, 
salt  it,  and  put  it  into  moulds — -just  as  we  do — and  out 
comes  a  cheese  at  last — a  real  cheese,  composed  of  real 
casein!  Put  it  into  the  hands  of  a  chemist,  and  ask 
him  the  component  parts  of  a  hundred  grains  of  it,  and 
he  will  tell  you  as  follows  : — 

Ounces. 

Carbon,    .........     63 

Hydrogen, 7,  etc. 

I  stop  there ;  for  you  surely  know  the  list  by  this 
time! 

Only  the  third  aliment  of  nutrition  remains  to  be  con- 
sidered, for  there  are  but  three  ;  and  I  will  tell  you  in 
confidence,  what  is  stranger  still,  viz.,  that  there  is  in 
reality  but  one !  But  we  have  had  enough  food  for  one 
day,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  spoil  your  appetite.  We  will 
reserve  the  rest  for  another  meal. 


LETTER  XXVII. 

ALIMENTS  OF  NUTRITION   (continued). 
NITROGEN  OR  AZOTE. 

THERE  is  a  favorite  conjuring  trick,  which  always 
amuses  people,  though  it  deceives  no  one.  The  con- 
juror shows  you  an  egg,  holds  it  up  to  the  light  that 
you  may  see  it  is  quite  fresh,  then  breaks  it ;  and — crack 
— out  comes  a  poor  little  wet  bird,  who  flies  away  as 
well  as  he  can. 

This  trick  is  repeated  in  earnest  by  nature  every  day, 
under  our  very  eyes,  without  our  paying  any  attention 
to  it.  She  brings  a  chicken  out  of  the  egg,  which  we 
place  under  the  hen  for  twenty-two  days,  instead  of  eat- 
ing it  in  the  shell  as  we  might  have  done,  and  we  view 
it  as  a  matter  of  course.  Yet  we  do  not  say  here  that 
the  bird  may  not  have  come  down  the  conjuror's  sleeve, 
or  the  hen  may  not  have  brought  it  from  under  her  wing. 
It  was  really  in  the  egg,  and  its  own  beak  tapped  against 
the  shell  from  within  and  cracked  it. 

How  has  this  come  about  ?  No  one  can  have  put  that 
beak,  those  feathers,  those  feet,  the  whole  little  body,  in 
short,  into  the  egg  while  the  hen- was  sitting  upon  it, 
that  is  certain.  It  is  equally  certain,  then,  that  the 
liquid  inside  the  egg  must  have  contained  materials  for 
all  those  things  beforehand  ;  and  if  Nature  could  manu- 
facture the  bones,  muscles,  eyes,  etc.,  of  the  chicken,  out 
10*  (225) 


226  NITROGEN   OR   AZOTE. 

of  that  liquid  while  in  the  egg,  she  would  probably  have 
found  no  more  difficulty  in  manufacturing  your  bones, 
muscles,  eyes,  etc.,  from  it  had  you  swallowed  the  egg 
yourself. 

Here,  then,  is  an  undeniable  aliment  of  nutrition. 

It  is  called  albumen,  which  is  the  Latin  word  for 
white  of  egg.  It  is  easily  recognized  by  a  very  obvious 
characteristic.  When  exposed  to  a  temperature  vary- 
ing from  sixty  to  seventy-five  degrees  of  heat,  according 
to  the  quantity  of  water  with  which  it  is  mixed,  albu- 
men hardens,  and  changes  from  a  colorless  transparent 
liquid,  into  that  opaque  white  substance,  which  every- 
body who  has  eaten  "  hard-boiled  eggs7'  is  perfectly  well 
acquainted  with. 

I  will  only  add  one  trifling  detail.  100  ounces  of 
albumen  contain  as  follows  : 

Ounces. 

Carbon,  • 63 

Hydrogen, — 

You  can  fill  up  this  number  yourself,  can  you  not  ? 
And  knowing  the  7  of  hydrogen,  you  may  guess  what 
follows  !  After  what  we  have  talked  of  last  time,  here 
is  already  an  explanation  of  the  chicken's  growth.  But 
let  us  go  on. 

You  recollect  that  yellowish  liquid  I  spoke  about, 
which  lies  underneath  the  clot,  or  coagulum  of  the  blood  ? 
I  will  tell  you  its  name,  that  we  may  get  on  more  easily 
afterward.  It  is  called  the  serum,  a  Latin  word,  which, 
for  once,  people  have  not  taken  the  trouble  of  translat- 
ing, and  which  also  means  whey.  Put  this  serum  on 
the  fire,  and  in  scarcely  longer  time  than  it  takes  to  boil 
an  egg  hard,  it  will  be  full  of  an  opaque  white  sub- 
stance, which  is  the  very  albumen  we  are  speaking  of. 
Our  blood,  then,  contains  white  of  egg  /  it  contains  in 


NITROGEN   OR   AZOTE.  227 

fact — if  you  care  to  know  it — sixty-five  times  more  white 
of  egg  than  fibrine,  for  in  1,000  ounces  of  blood,  you 
will  find  195  of  albumen,  and  only  three  of  fibrine  ;  of 
casein,  none. 

Nevertheless  we  eat  cheese  from  time  to  time.  And 
we  generally  eat  more  meat  than  eggs,  and  meat  is  prin- 
cipally composed  of  fibrine !  I  should  be  a  good  deal 
puzzled  to  make  you  understand  this,  if  we  had  not  our 
grand  list  to  refer  to. 

Ounces. 

Carbon, 63 

Hydrogen, 7,  etc. 

Fibrine,  casein,  albumen,  they  are  all  the  same  thing 
in  the  main.  It  is  one  substance  assuming  different  ap- 
pearances, according  to  the  occasion  ;  like  actors  who 
play  several  parts  in  a  piece,  and  go  behind  the  scenes 
from  time  to  time  to  change  their  dresses.  The  usual 
appearance  of  the  aliment  of  nutrition  in  the  blood  is 
albumen  •  and  in  the  stomach,  which  is  the  dressing-room 
of  our  actors,  fibrine  and  casein  disguise  themselves  in- 
geniously as  albumen  •  trusting  to  albumen  to  come  for- 
ward afterwards  as  fibrine  or  casein,  when  there  is 
either  a  muscle  to  be  formed,  or  milk  to  be  produced. 

Know,  moreover,  that  albumen  very  often  comes  to  us 
ready  dressed,  and  it  is  not  only  from  eggs  we  get  it. 
As  we  have  already  found  the  fibrine  of  the  muscle  and 
the  casein  of  milk  in  vegetables,  so  we  shall  also  find 
there,  and  that  without  looking  far,  the  albumen  of  the 
egg.  It  exists  in  grass,  in  salad,  and  in  all  the  soft  parts 
of  vegetables.  The  juice  of  root-vegetables  in  particu- 
lar contains  remarkable  quantities  of  it.  Boil,  for  in- 
stance, the  juice  of  a  turnip,  after  straining  it  quite  clear, 
and  you  will  see  a  white,  opaque  substance  produced,  ex- 


228  NITROGEN  OR  AZOTE. 

actly  like  that  which  you  would  observe  under  similar 
circumstances  in  the  serum  of  the  blood  ;  real  white  of 
egg,  that  is  to  say — to  call  it  by  the  name  you  are  most 
familiar  with — with  all  its  due  proportions  of  carbon, 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen. 

I  wonder  whether  you  feel  as  I  do,  dear  child ;  for  I 
own  that  I  turn  giddy  almost  when  I  look  too  long  into 
these  depths  of  the  mysteries  of  nature.  Here,  for  in- 
stance, is  the  substance  which  is  found  everywhere,  and 
everywhere  the  same — in  the  grass  as  in  the  egg,  in  your 
blood  as  in  turnip-juice !  And  with  this  one  sole  sub- 
stance which  it  has  pleased  the  great  Creator  to  throw 
broadcast  into  everything  you  eat,  He  has  fashioned  all 
the  thousand  portions  of  your  frame,  diverse  and  deli- 
cate as  they  are  ;  never  once  undoing  it,  so  to  speak,  to 
re-arrange  differently  the  elements  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed. From  time  to  time  it  receives  some  slight  im- 
pulse which  alters  its  appearance  but  not  its  nature,  and 
that  is  all.  As  the  chemist  found  it  in  the  bit  of  salad, 
so  he  will  find  it  again  in  the  tip  of  your  nose,  if  you  will 
trust  him  with  that  for  examination.  We  are  proud  of 
our  personal  appearance  sometimes,  and  smile  at  our- 
selves  in  the  looking-glass  ;  we  think  the  body  a  very 
precious  thing  ;  but  yet  when  we  look  deeply  into  it  we 
find  it  merely  so  much  charcoal,  water  and  air. 

This  reminds  me  that  we  have  not  yet  made  acquaint- 
ance with  the  new  personage  who  was  lately  introduced 
upon  the  scene.  Nitrogen  or  azote,  I  mean.  He  plays 
too  important  a  part  to  be  allowed  to  remain  in  obscurity. 

You  have  already  learnt  that  oxygen  united  with  hy- 
drogen produces  water.  Combined  with  nitrogen  it 
produces  air  ;  but  in  that  case  there  is  no  union  of  the 
two.  They  are  merely  neighbors,  occupying  between 
them  the  whole  space  extending  from  the  earth's  sur- 


NITROGEN   OR   AZOTE.  229 

face  to  forty  or  fifty  miles  above  our  heads  ;  together 
everywhere,  but  everywhere  as  entire  strangers  to  each 
other  as  two  Englishmen  who  have  never  been  intro- 
duced !  I  should  be  a  good  deal  puzzle  J  to  say  what  nitro- 
gen does  in  the  air  :  he  is  there  as  an  inert  body,  and 
leaves  all  the  business  to  the  oxygen.  When  we  breathe, 
for  instance,  the  nitrogen  enters  our  lungs  together  with 
its  inseparable  companion,  but  it  goes  out  as  it  went  in, 
without  leaving  a  trace  of  its  passage.  Nevertheless,  as 
sometimes  happens  among  men,  the  one  who  does  nothing 
takes  up  the  most  room.  Nitrogen  alone  occupies  four- 
fifths  of  the  atmosphere,  where  it  is  of  no  other  use  than 
to  moderate  the  ardent  activity  of  king  oxygen,  who 
would  consume  everything  were  he  alone.  I  can  com- 
pare it  to  nothing  better  than  to  the  water  you  mix  with 
wine,  which  would  be  too  fiery  for  your  inside  if  you 
drank  it  by  itself.  This  is  what  nitrogen  does.  It  puts 
the  drag  on  the  car  of  combustion  ;  as  in  society,  the 
large  proportion  of  quiet  people  put  the  drag  on  the  car 
of  progress  (let  us  for  once  indulge  ourselves  in  talking 
like  the  newspapers !) ;  and  such  people  are  of  definite 
use,  however  irritating  their  interference  may  appear  in 
some  cases.  The  world  would  go  on  too  rapidly  if  there 
were  nothing  but  oxygen  among  men.  We  have  quite 
enough  in  having  a  fifth  of  it ! 

But  what  in  the  world  am  I  talking  about  ?  Let  us 
get  back  to  nitrogen  as  fast  as  we  can ! 

We  must  not  imagine  there  is  no  energy  in  this  quiet 
moderator  of  oxygen.  Like  those  calm  people  who  be- 
come terrible  when  once  roused,  our  nitrogen  becomes 
extremely  violent  in  his  actions  when  he  is  excited  by 
another  substance,  and  is  bent  on  forming  alliances. 
Sometimes  the  usually  cold  neighbor  unites  itself  to  oxy- 
gen in  the  closest  bonds  ;  in  which  case  the  two  to- 


230  NITROGEN   OR   AZOTE. 

gether  form  that  powerful  liquid,  aqua-fortis,  of  which 
you  may  have  heard,  and  which  corrodes  copper,  burns 
the  skin,  and  devours  indiscriminately  almost  everything 
it  comes  in  contact  with.  Combined  with  hydrogen,  ni- 
trogen forms  ammonia,  which  is  still  often  called  by  its 
old  name  volatile  alkali  ;  one  of  the  most  powerful  bodies 
in  existence,  and  one  for  which  you  would  very  soon 
learn  to  entertain  a  proper  respect,  if  somebody  were  to 
uncork  a  bottle  of  it  under  your  nose.  Finally,  nitro- 
gen and  carbon  combined,  produce  a  quite  foreign  sub- 
stance (cyanogen],  resembling  neither  father  nor  mother 
in  its  actions  and  powers,  to  the  confusion  of  all  pre- 
conceived ideas,  when  Gay-Lussac,  a  Frenchman,  intro- 
duced it  to  the  world,  where  it  fell  like  a  bombshell 
upon  the  theory  of  chemical  combinations.  This  imper- 
tinent fellow,  combining  with  hydrogen  in  his  turn,  pro- 
duces prussic  acid,  the  most  frightful  of  poisons ;  one 
drop  of  which  placed  on  the  tongue  of  a  horse  strikes  it 
dead  as  if  by  lightning. 

You  perceive  that  you  must  not  trust  our  worthy 
friend  too  far.  You  have  learnt,  however,  elsewhere, 
that  it  is  not  equally  formidable  in  all  its  combinations. 
Those  very  substances  which,  when  paired  off  into  small 
separate  groups,  destroy  all  before  them,  constitute,  all 
four  together,  that  precious  aliment  of  nutrition  of 
which  we  are  formed.  Moreover,  its  real  name  is 
"  azotized  aliment"  because  it  is  the  presence  of  nitrogen 
or  azote  in  it,  which,  above  all,  determines  its  quality, 
so  that  people  are  in  the  habit  oi  estimating  the  nour- 
ishing power  of  our  food  by  the  amount  of  nitrogen  it 
contains.  In  fact,  nitrogen  seems  to  be  a  substance 
especially  inclined  towards  everything  that  has  life. 
His  three  comrades  wander  in  mighty  streams,  so  to 
speak,  through  every  part  of  creation  ;  but  he,  except 


NITROGEN   OR   AZOTE.  231 

in  the  vast  domain  of  the  atmosphere,  where  he  reigns 
in  such  majestic  repose,  is  rarely  met  with,  except  in  an- 
imals, or  in  such  portions  of  plants  as  are  destined  for 
the  support  of  animal  life. 

On  this  point  I  will  tell  you  the  history  of  his  original 
name,  azote,  which  you  will  find  curious  enough.  A  short 
time  before  the  French  Revolution,  in  1789,  the  princi- 
pal properties  of  this  gas  were  made  known  to  the 
world  by  a  learned  Frenchman,  who  may  be  almost  con- 
sidered the  father  of  modern  chemistry,  and  whose  name 
I  must  beg  you  to  recollect.*  He  was  called  Lavoisier. 
While  endeavoring  to  account  satisfactorily  for  combus- 
tion, which  before  his  time  people  explained  any  way 
they  could,  Lavoisier  succeeded  in  separating  our  two 
friends,  the  neighbors  in  the  atmosphere,  one  from  the 
other,  and  was  the  first  man  in  the  world  who  managed 
to  secure  in  two  bottles — on  the  one  hand,  the  bubbling 
oxygen  freed  from  his  tiresome  mentor  ;  on  the  other,  the 
sober  azote,  snatched  away  from  his  giddy  pupil.  What 
he  did  with  the  bottle  of  oxygen  matters  but  little  to  us  ; 
but  in  the  bottle  of  azote  lie  plunged,  by  way  of  experi- 
ment, an  unfortunate  mouse,  and  subsequently  a  little 
bird,  both  of  whom,  finding  no  oxygen  to  breathe,  died 
one  after  the  other.  Nothing  could  live  in  it,  as  you 
may  suppose  ;  and  Lavoisier  thought  it  must  be  right  to 
give  so  destructive  a  gas  the  name  of  azote,  which  in 
Greek  means  "  opposed  to  life."  Meantime,  science  went 
on  progressing  by  the  gleam  of  the  lamp  he  had  lit,  and 
then  followed  the  discoveries  of  his  successors,  who  forced 
their  way  into  the  obscure  laboratory  where  the  elements 
of  living  bodies  are  prepared.  And  at  last  it  was  ascer- 

*  Dr.  Daniel  Rutherford  (Edinburgh)  discovered  the  existence  of 
Nitrogen,  A.  D.  1772 ;  but  he  never  investigated  its  character. 


232  NITROGEN   OR   AZOTE. 

tained  that  this  azote,  opposed  to  life  as  it  was  thought 
to  be,  was  actually  an  essential  property  of  life  ;  that 
it  accompanied  it  everywhere,  and  that  without  it  the 
whole  framework  of  the  animal  machine  would  fall  to 
pieces.  It  is  still  known  by  its  old  name,  which  custom 
had  sanctioned  ;  but  I  imagine  no  learned  man  can  ever 
utter  it  now  without  a  feeling  of  humility,  and  without 
the  thought  that  the  future  has  possibly  many  contradic- 
tions in  store  for  him  also.  Besides,  nitrogen  has  to  pass 
through  many  fine-drawing  processes  before  it  attains 
that  post  of  honor  which  has  been  assigned  to  it  in  the 
animal  kingdom.  The  animal  himself  can  do  nothing 
with  it,  unless  it  has  been  previously  absorbed  and  di- 
gested by  the  vegetable,  and  the  vegetable  in  its  turn 
could  get  no  good  from  it,  were  it  to  remain  isolated  and 
indifferent  in  the  bosom  of  the  atmosphere.  It  is  only 
when  it  has  formed  one  of  those  combinations  I  have  been 
telling  you  about,  and  more  particularly  the  second, 
which  produces  ammonia,  that  it  fairly  enters  upon  the 
round  of  life.  And  then,  in  the  mysterious  depths  of 
vegetable  existence  is  organized  that  wonderful  qua- 
drille of  the  aliments  of  nutrition,  the  history  of  which 
has  now  been  sufficiently  explained  to  you. 

The  vegetable  kingdom,  therefore,  is  simply  the  great 
kitchen  in  which  the  dinner  of  the  animal  kingdom  is 
being  constantly  made  ready  ;  and  when  we  eat  beef,  it 
is,  in  fact,  the  grass  which  the  ox  has  eaten,  which  nour- 
ishes us.  The  animal  is  only  a  medium  which  transmits 
intact  to  us  the  albumen  extracted  in  his  own  stomach 
from  the  juices  furnished  to  him  in  the  fields.  He  is  the 
waiter  of  the  eating-house  ;  the  dishes  which  he  brings 
us  have  been  given  him  already  cooked  in  the  kitchen. 
But  to  appreciate  properly  the  service  he  renders  us  we 
must  remember  that  the  dishes  to  be  obtained  from  grass 


NITROGEN   OB  AZOTE.  233 

are  very,  very  small,  and  that  it  would  be  a  great  fatigue 
to  the  stomach  if  it  could  only  get  at  such  tiny  scraps 
at  a  time  ;  as,  alas !  has  sometimes  happened  to  the 
famine-stricken  poor,  who  have  tried  in  vain  to  support 
life  from  the  grass  in  the  field.  But  these  minute  dishes 
are  brought  to  us  in  the  mass  whenever  we  eat  beef,  and 
our  stomachs  benefit  accordingly.  Do  not  forget  this, 
my  child  ;  and  when  mamma  asks  you  to  eat  meat,  obey 
her  with  a  good  grace  ;  if,  that  is  to  say,  you  wish  to 
grow  up  to  be  a  woman. 


LETTER  XXVIII. 

COMPOSITION    OF    THE    BLOOD. 

ONE  word  more  before  we  finish.  We  must  not  leave 
off  without  bidding  a  last  farewell  to  the  good  servant 
of  whom  we  have  spoken  so  much  ;  the  model  steward 
so  exact  in  giving  back  everything  he  receives — the 
factotum  of  the  house  in  short.  We  have  watched  him 
at  work  long  enough,  but  I  have  not  yet  described  him 
personally  to  you,  nor  told  you  exactly  what  he  is  com- 
posed of. 

And  here  I  shall  be  obliged  to  begin  again  with  figures 
and  calculations,  although  I  am  told  young  people  are 
not  very  fond  of  them.  Nevertheless,  none  of  us  can 
manage  our  affairs  properly  without  them.  Hereafter, 
when  you  are  at  the  head  of  a  family,  you  will  be  oblig- 
ed to  practise  arithmetic,  if  you  want  to  know  what  is 
going  on  in  your  house.  Never  allow  yourself  to  look 
upon  what  is  necessary  as  wearisome  ;  the  true  secret  of 
being  punctual  in  our  duties  is  to  throw  our  heart  and 
interest  into  them. 

I  choose,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  you  will  be  in- 
terested to  know  that  1000  ounces  of  blood  generally 
contain,  (for  there  are  shades  of  difference  between  one 
sort  of  blood  and  another)  870  ounces  of  the  serum  I 
have  been  talking  about,  and  130  ounces  of  clot.  At 
first  sight  one  would  take  the  quantity  of  clot  to  be 
much  greater  than  it  really  is  ;  but  in  the  state  you  see 
(234) 


COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD.  235 

it,  in  the  basin,  it  contains  a  considerable  amount  of 
water,  which  belongs  by  right  to  its  companion  serum, 
and  which  has  to  be  drained  away  from  it  before  it  can 
be  weighed. 

Now,  in  our  87Cf  ounces  of  serum,  we  shall  find,  to 
begin  with,  790  of  water  ;  do  not  be  astonished  at  the 
quantity.  Most  of  the  weight  of  all  animals  is  produced 
by  water  ;  they  weigh  comparatively  nothing  after  being 
thoroughly  dried  in  a  stove — when  they  are  dead  of 
course — for  neither  animal  nor  plant  can  live  unless 
saturated  with  water.  This,  by  the  way,  may  serve  to 
explain  the  ease  with  which  we  can  keep  ourselves  float- 
ing in  water ;  we  are  not  much  more  than  water  our- 
selves !  Were  it  not  for  those  abominable  bones  which 
are  a  little  bit  heavier  than  the  rest,  we  should  never 
sink  unless  a  stone  were  hung  round  our  necks. 

I  repeat  then  ;  790  ounces  of  water  in  870  of  serum  ; 
which  leaves  80.  Of  this,  albumen  furnishes  seventy, 
and  the  ten  others,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  portion 
of  fat  which  floats  here  and  there  ready-made,  are  sails. 
It  would  take  too  long  to  explain  what  salts  are  here, 
but  there  is  one  sort  of  salt  you  know  perfectly  well ; 
viz.,  that  which  is  put  on  the  dinner-table  in  a  salt-cellar. 
And  it  is  the  most  important  of  all.  More  than  half 
the  ten  ounces  of  salts  consist  of  it  alone,  which  will 
make  you  understand  better  than  before,  what  I  ex- 
plained with  reference  to  the  stomach  ;  that  is,  why  we 
put  salt  in  our  food.  The  porter  above  is  quite  up  to 
his  business  when  he  asks  everyone  who  enters  to  pro- 
duce his  little  bit  of  salt.  It  is  an  attention  which  the 
blood  appreciates  very  highly,  although  table-salt  is  of 
no  great  use  to  him  in  his  building  operations ;  but  it 
evidently  keeps  him  in  good  humor,  and  he  would  work 
badly  without  it.  It  is  the  same  with  all  the  animals 


236  COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD. 

man  makes  use  of,  and  even  the  plants  he  cultivates,  find 
that  salt  gives  them  an  appetite.  And  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if  nature  had  purposely  dealt  with  us  in  this 
matter  on  a  magnificent  scale.  She  has  made  salt-maga- 
zines of  the  sea  and  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  where  it 
exists  in  prodigious  masses  which  cost  nothing  but  the 
labor  of  stooping  to  pick  up,  except  in  countries  where 
a  gentleman  called  a  tax-gatherer,  stands  by  to  count 
the  lumps  and  allow  them  to  pass  on  by  paying  a  duty. 
For  my  part,  if  I  were  the  government — this  is  a  secret 
between  you  and  me,  mind — I  would  look  out  for  some- 
thing else  to  stand  in  the  place  of  the  salt-tax.  It  is 
not  well  to  interpose  between  man  and  the  gratuities 
of  Dame  Nature,  and  to  make  him  pay  more  heavily  for 
the  blood's  chosen  friend  than  she  meant  him  to  be 
charged. 

But  to  proceed,  the  kitchen-salt  being  deducted  from 
the  ten  ounces  of  salts-in-general,  there  remain  alto- 
gether from  four  to  five  ounces,  which  contain .  But 

here  I  stop,  for  it  puzzles  me  very  much  how  to  go  on ! 
Enough,  that  to  enable  you  to  follow  me,  you  would  re- 
quire at  least  as  much  knowledge  of  chemistry  as  will 
be  expected  of  a  young  man  who  has  to  pass  an  exami- 
nation in  medicine.  Fancy  the  contents  of  a  whole 
druggist's  shop  !  I  will  tell  you  a  few  names,  that  you 
may  have  a  specimen  of  the  style  in  use,  but  I  forewarn 
you  that  they  are  not  inviting  :  hydrochlorate  of  ammo- 
nia; hydrochlorate  of  potash  ;  carbonate  of  lime  ;  sulphate 
of  potash ;  phosphate  of  lime ;  phosphate  of  magnesia  ; 
lactate  of  soda.  I  spare  you  the  others,  for  many  others 
there  are,  without  counting  those  which  have  not  yet 
been  discovered !  All  these  things  are  to  be  found,  I 
must  tell  you,  in  fibrine  and  albumen,  but  in  such  minute 
quantities  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  recognize  them. 


COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD.  237 

In  the  serum,  for  instance,  the  gentlemen  are  so  very 
small,  and  so  completely  entangled  one  with  the  other, 
that  it  is  startling  to  think  of  the  skill  and  patience 
requisite  for  making  them  all  out,  to  say  nothing  of 
affixing  the  right  name — uncouth  as  it  may  seem — to 
each  grain  of  this  almost  imperceptible  dust !  He  who 
first  called  man  an  epitome  of  creation,  scarcely  knew 
how  truly  he  was  speaking,  for  man  bears  about  in  his 
veins,  ascertained  samples  of  at  least  half  the  primitive 
substances  from  which  all  others  are  made,  and  if  the 
whole  of  them  should  some  day  be  found  to  be  there,  I 
for  one  should  not  be  surprised. 

This  is  well  worth  knowing,  is  it  not  ?  and  I  have  not 
come  to  the  end  of  my  story  yet. 

We  have  still  the  130  ounces  of  dot  to  speak  about. 
But  their  contents  are  easily  reckoned.  Three  ounces 
of  fibrine  and  127  of  globules. 

Here,  however,  we  enter  upon  such  a  world  of  won- 
ders, that  I  am  quite  delighted  to  be  able  to  finish  with 
it.  It  will  be  the  masterpiece  of  our  exhibition ! 

You  feel  quite  sure  blood  is  red,  do  you  not  ?  Well ! 
it  is  no  more  red  than  the  water  of  a  stream  would  be,  if 
you  were  to  fill  it  with  little  red  fishes.  Suppose  the 
fishes  to  be  very  very  small,  as  small  as  a  grain  of  sand  ; 
and  closely  crowded  together  through  the  whole  depth 
of  the  stream  :  the  water  would  look  quite  red,  would  it 
not  ?  And  this  is  the  way  in  which  blood  looks  red : 
only  observe  one  thing  ;  a  grain  of  sand  is  a  mountain 
in  comparison  with  the  little  red  fishes  in  the  blood.  If 
I  were  to  tell  you  they  measured  about  the  3,200th  part 
of  an  inch  in  diameter,  you  would  not  be  much  the  wiser, 
so  I  prefer  saying  (by  way  of  giving  you  a  more  striking 
idea  of  their  minuteness)  that  there  would  be  about  a 
million  in  such  a  drop  of  blood  as  would  hang  on  the 


238  COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD. 

point  of  a  needle.  I  say  so  on  the  authority  of  a  scien- 
tific Frenchman — M.  Bouillet.  Not  that  he  ever  counted 
them,  as  you  may  suppose,  any  more  than  I  have  done  ; 
but  this  is  as  near  an  approach  as  can  be  made  by  calcu- 
lation to  the  size  of  those  fabulous  blood-fishes,  which 
are  the  3,200th  part  of  an  inch  in  diameter. 

These  littles  fishes  are  called  globules ;  but  they  are 
not  exactly  shaped  like  little  globes,  as  the  word  would 
lead  you  to  suppose.  They  are  more  like  little  plates 
slightly  hollowed  out  on  both  sides.  The  central  nucleus 
is  surrounded  by  a  flattened  margin  rather  bladdery  in 
appearance,  of  a  beautiful  red  color,  formed  of  a  sort  of 
very  soft  and  very  elastic  jelly.  I  scarcely  need  tell 
you  that  all  this  was  discovered  through  the  microscope, 
and  moreover,  by  examining  the  blood  of  frogs,  in  which 
the  globules  are  much  larger  than  in  ours.45' 

It  was  in  1661 — rather  more  than  two  hundred  years 
ago — that  an  Italian  and  a  Dutchman  discovered,  each 
by  himself  in  his  own  country,  the  microscopic  popula- 
tion of  the  blood.  The  name  of  the  Italian  is  not  very 
difficult — Malpighi.  As  to  the  Dutchman's,  you  must 
pronounce  it  in  the  best  way  you  can — he  was  called 
Leeuwenhoek.  You  smile,  but  he  was  nevertheless  one 
of  the  first  men  who  really  comprehended  what  a  won- 
derful auxiliary  human  science  had  just  got  hold  of  in 
the  microscope,  and  he  has  helped  to  open  the  eyes  of 
the  world  to  the  marvels  of  miniature  creation.  So  con- 

*  Authentic  portraits  of  these  globules  drawn — so  to  speak — by 
Nature  herself,  are  to  be  seen  on  the  admirable  Photographs  ob- 
tained by  Bertsch,  with  the  aid  of  the  solar  microscope,  invented  by 
himself  and  Arnaud.  There  you  see  them  magnified  250,000  times, 
and  may  study  them  at  your  ease,  and  verify  my  description  for 
yourself  without  any  fear  of  being  deceived.  You  must  persuade 
your  father  to  procure  one.  This  result  of  photography  is  among 
the  wonders  of  modern  science. 


COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD.  239 

tent  yourself,  young  lady,  with  mis-pronouncing  his  name, 
and  beware  of  laughing  at  it!  Names  are  something 
like  faces,  one  may  live  to  be  ashamed  of  ridiculing  the 
wrong  one. 

This  discovery  of  the  globules  of  the  blood  was  des- 
tined to  throw  great  light  upon  the  way  in  which  the 
nutrition  of  the  organs  was  carried  on.  Modern  chemists, 
who  are  always  fond  of  investigation,  have  examined 
what  they  are  made  of,  and  can  find  little  else  in  them 
but  albumen.  Out  of  our  127  ounces  of  globules,  125 
are  albumen  ;  and  these,  with  the  70  ounces  which  we 
found  before  in  the  serum,  make  up  the  195  ounces  (of 
albumen)  which  I  told  you  were  contained  in  the  1,000 
ounces  of  blood.  Forgive  me  all  these  ounces  and  fig- 
ures. Exact  accounts  give  exact  information. 

These  globules,  then,  are  composed  almost  entirely  of 
albumen.  Nearly  two-thirds  of  all  the  albumen  in  the 
blood  is  concentrated  in  them  ;  and  you  know  now  the 
use  of  albumen,  viz.,  that  it  is  the  foundation  of  all  the 
buildings  of  which  the  blood  is  the  architect.  Every- 
thing leads  us  to  believe  that  the  formation  of  globules 
in  the  blood  is  the  last  touch  given  by  nature  to  that 
magical  provision  begun  in  the  vegetable,  continued  in 
the  stomach,  and  finished  in  the  veins,  to  which,  in  com- 
bination with  carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen, 
we  are  indebted  for  the  subsistence  of  every  portion  of 
our  body.  Thus  the  blood-globules  may  be  considered 
as  albumen  which  has  finished  its  education,  and  is  ready 
to  go  into  the  world  ;  while  the  albumen  of  the  serum 
is,  like  our  young  friends,  the  generations  in  reserve, 
who  are  still  at  school  awaiting  their  turn. 

This  is  more  than  a  mere  supposition.  Scientific  men 
have  taken  to  themselves,  on  their  own  authority,  all 
sorts  of  rights  over  animals,  and  we  profit  basely  enough 


240  COMPOSITION   OP   THE   BLOOD. 

by  their  crimes — I  will  not  withdraw  the  word — in  order 
to  increase  our  knowledge.  Accordingly,  they  conceived 
the  idea  of  opening  the  veins  of  animals,  and  allowing 
the  blood  to  flow  until  the  victim  was  prostrate  and 
motionless  as  a  corpse.  This  done,  they  proceeded  to 
fill  the  exhausted  veins  with  blood,  similar  to  that  which 
had  been  withdrawn,  and  with  the  blood,  life  was  seen 
gradually  to  return,  till  the  animal  rose  from  the  ground, 
walked,  and  resumed  its  disturbed  existence,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened.  The  interesting  part  of  the  experiment 
to  us  is,  that  if  serum  only,  without  globules,  be  restored 
to  the  unfortunate  animal,  it  is  of  no  use  whatever,  and 
the  corpse  does  not  revive. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  all  the  power  and  virtue  of 
the  blood  lies  in  the  globules  ;  and  according  as  their 
number  is  great  or  small  it  is  "  rich'"  or  "  poor,"  as  it  is 
called  ;  and  where  their  number  is  not  up  to  the  mark, 
the  blood  acts  more  feebly  on  the  organs,  life  is  calmer, 
and  people  are  no  longer  troubled  with  emotions — in 
other  words,  with  violent  heats  of  the  blood.  Hence 
the  impassible  character  of  lymphatic  people,  who  often 
get  on  in  the  struggle  of  life  better  than  others,  because 
they  are  never  in  a  hurry,  and  know  how  to  wait  for 
opportunities.  You  will  occasionally  hear  the  word  lym- 
phatic, for  it 'has  become  the  fashion,  and  it  is  time  for 
me  to  explain  it ;  but  unluckily  the  explanation  is  not  in 
its  favor. 

You  remember  those  little  scavengers  we  spoke  about 
formerly,  who  came  from  the  depths  of  all  the  organs, 
carrying  away  with  them  the  worn-out  building  mate- 
rials, and  covering  the  surface  of  the  body  with  an 
inextricable  net  work  of  tiny  canals.  These  canals 
are  called  lymphatic  vessels,  in  consequence  of  being 
filled  with  a  liquid  which  is  called  lymph  faater,  in 


COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD.  241 

Latin),  but  why  I  cannot  tell  you,  for  it  is,  in  fact,  simple 
serum.  There  was  a  very  simple  way  of  ascertainig  this 
by  making  out  an  inventory  of  the  contents  of  the  lymph 
liquid,  and  when  this  was  done,  they  were  found  to  con- 
sist of  water,  albumen,  and  the  salts  of  serum ;  there 
was  even  a  little  fibrine  ;  the  only  thing  wanting  was 
globules. 

How  the  truant  serum  finds  its  way  into  the  lymphatic 
vessels  is  probably  as  follows  : — I  have  already  men- 
tioned the  inconceivable  delicacy  of  the  capillary  vessels, 
those  last  ramifications  of  our  arteries  and  veins.  It 
needs  all  the  impulsive  power  of  the  heart  to  enable  the 
blood  to  force  its  way  through  these  narrow  passages  ; 
and  minute  as  are  the  globules,  it  would  seem  that  they 
have  but  just  room  to  pass,  for  in  examining  under  the 
microscope  a  corner  of  the  tongue  of  a  live  frog,  the 
globules  have  been  seen  doubling  themselves  up  to  pass 
through  the  capillaries,  resuming  their  natural  form  after- 
wards. 

It  was  this,  indeed,  which  made  me  tell  you  just  now 
that  their  margins  were  elastic.  During  this  momentary 
crush,  part  of  the  serum  being  forced  on  too  fast,  oozes 
through  the  wall  of  the  over-filled  capillaries,  as  water 
oozes  through  the  leathern  pipes  of  a  fire-engine,  and 
hence  probably  the  appearance  of  serum  or  lymph  in  the 
organs,  where  it  is  immediately  sucked  up  (i.  e.,  absorbed) 
by  the  lymphatic  vessels.  Now,  you  will  easily  under- 
stand that  the  larger  the  proportion  of  serum  in  the  blood, 
the  greater  will  be  the  quantity  to  be  expelled  in  pass- 
ing through  the  capillaries,  and  the  more  will  the  lym- 
phatic vessels  swell.  In  such  cases  the  temperament  or 
constitution  is  said  to  be  lymphatic.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
the  globules  are  in  excess,  the  lymphatic  vessels  receive 
less  serum,  and  diminish  in  size.  The  temperament  is 
11 


242  COMPOSITION  OF  THE  BLOOD. 

then  called  sanguine,  as  if  there  were  no  serum  in  the 
blood.  You  shall  be  judge  yourself,  knowing  what  you 
now  do,  whether  it  would  not  be  more  reasonable  to  call 
such  temperaments  serous  and  globulous.  At  any  rate 
those  names  would  give  people  an  idea  of  the  real  state 
of  things,  and  teach  them  that  there  were  such  things  as 
globules  in  the  blood.* 

To  conclude,  I  must  give  you  an  account  of  the  two 
ounces  which  still  remain  of  the  127  of  globules,  albu- 
men taking  up  only  125,  as  you  know.  Those  two  poor 
little  ounces — the  remainder  of  the  thousand  with  which 
we  started — would  you  believe  it  ? — they  alone  have  the 
honor  of  conferring  upon  the  blood  its  beautiful  red 
color.  They  constitute  the  coloring  matter  of  the 
globules,  and  you  will  never  guess  its  chief  element.  It 
is  iron ;  ay,  actually  iron,  young  lady — the  iron  of 
swords  and  bayonets.  We  often  accuse  it  of  tinging  the 
earth  with  blood  ;  and  you  may  now  know  further,  that 
it  reddens  blood  itself  by  way  of  compensation.  Do 
not  trouble  yourself  as  to  where  it  comes  from.  Our 
fields  are  full  of  it,  our  very  plants  have  stores  of  it. 
It  sometimes  happens  that  our  digestive  apparatus,  put 
out  of  order  by  other  occupations,  fails  to  make  use  of 
the  amount  of  iron  offered  to  it ;  in  which  case  the  blood 
is  discolored,  and  the  face  turns  pallid  as  wax  :  this  is 
an  illness  requiring  great  care.  If  it  should  ever  befall 

*  Here  is  a  summary  of  the  contents  of  1000  oz.  of  blood : — 

Ounces. 

(Water 790) 

Serum.  ^Albumen 70V     870 

(Salts •     .    .      10) 

(Fibrine 3) 

Clot.       ^,,j  Albumen 125)     mV      130 

|  Coloring  matter      ...        2f    127J 

looo 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  BLOOD.  243 

you,  you  will  not  be  surprised,  after  to-day's  lesson,  to 
hear  the  doctor  say  that  you  must  have  some  iron.  But 
be  easy — you  will  not  have  to  swallow  it  whole!  If 
you  will  take  my  advice,  you  will  obey  the  doctor's 
orders  as  soon  as  you  can. 

Not  that  looking  pale  signifies  any  thing :  indeed,  some 
young  ladies  think  it  an  advantage.  But  it  is  no  advan- 
tage to  any  body  when  the  blood-globules  are  distressed 
for  want  of  their  proper  supply  of  iron,  and  do  their 
work  grudgingly,  like  ill-fed  laborers.  Nothing  can  go 
on  without  them,  you  know,  and  they  are  people  whom  it 
is  not  well  to  leave  too  long  out  of  sorts.  Else  languor 
comes  on  ;  languor  which  is  the  beginning  of  death :  and 
pray  remember  that  iron,  which  so  often  causes  death,  is 
equally  useful  for  keeping  it  at  bay.  By  sending  it  to 
the  discolored  globules,  you  give  them  back  their  energy 
and  brilliancy  together. 

I  have  come  here  to  the  end  of  all  that  is  known  with 
any  certainty  about  these  wonderful  globules  which  are 
to  us  the  medium  of  life.  Shall  I  go  further,  is  the 
question,  and  take  you  with  me  into  the  fields  of  suppo- 
sition, so  full  of  noxious  weeds  ?  And  yet  why  not  ? 
Science  owes  its  present  position  to  the  praiseworthy 
rule  of  never  adopting  any  theory  which  is  not  sup- 
ported by  well-established  facts  ;  and  I  would  be  the 
last  to  advise  a  change.  Were  I  to  tell  you,  what  I  am 
now  going  to  say  to  you,  at  a  meeting  of  the  British 
Association  of  Science,  they  would  turn  me  out  of  the 
room,  and  with  very  good  reason.  Nothing  ought  to  be 
taught  there  but  what  can  be  proved.  But  this  is  of  no 
consequence  to  you  and  me,  and  we  have  a  right  to 
amuse  ourselves  a  little,  after  having  worked  so  hard. 

Well,  there  is  an  idea  which  nothing  shall  ever 
drive  out  of  my  head,  however  imperfectly  it  may  be 


244  COMPOSITION   OF   THE   BLOOD. 

proved  as  yet ;  namely,  that  each  of  our  globules  is  an 
animated  being  ;  and  that  our  life  is  the  mysterious 
result  of  these  millions  of  lesser  lives,  each  of  them  in- 
significant in  itself ;  in  the  same  way  that  the  mighty 
existence  of  a  nation,  is  a  compound  of  crowds  of  exist- 
ences, each,  for  the  most  part,  without  individual  impor- 
tance. Take  our  own  or  any  other  country  as  an  in- 
stance ;  where  millions  of  brains,  many  of  them  by  no 
means  first-rate  in  power,  go  to  form  a  national  char- 
acter, the  highest  (as  each  nation  is  apt  to  think  of  it- 
self) in  the  world.  According  to  this  idea,  you  must 
be  a  sort  of  nation  yourself,  my  dear  child,  which  is 
gratifying  to  think  of  on  the  whole. 

This  is  much  more  extraordinary  than  what  I  told 
you  some  time  ago,  of  the  individual  life  of  the  organs, 
each  of  which  on  this  new  system  would  be  a  province 
in  itself!  Do  not  exclaim  too  hastily.  Whether  the 
globules  are  animated  or  not,  it  is  very  certain,  let  me 
tell  you,  that  your  life  depends  entirely  upon  them ; 
that  it  is  weakened  if  they  are  weakened  ;  that  it  re- 
vives with  them  ;  and  that  whether  you  attribute  indi- 
vidual life  to  them  or  not,  makes  no  alteration  in  the 
fact :  their  action  upon  you  remains  the  same.  And 
he  must  be  a  very  clever  man  who  can  show  me  the 
exact  difference  between  action  and. life.  Hereafter, 
when  we  have  descended  the  scale  of  the  animal  world 
together,  and  are  arrived  at  the  study  of  what  are 
called  microscopic  animals,  you  will  better  understand 
the  words  which  appear  so  strange  to  you  now.  What 
little  our  feeble  instruments  have  revealed  to  us  so  far, 
of  the  history  of  those  globules,  places  them  almost  on 
a  level  with  those  strange  creatures,  inexplicable  to  us, 
which  are  found  in  innumerable  multitudes,  in  a  variety 
of  liquids.  We  trace  in  them  the  beginning  of  organi- 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  BLOOD.  245 

zation  ;  their  form  and  size  are  alike  in  all  individuals 
of  the  same  species  ;  and  species  vary  enough  to  induce 
one  to  believe,  that  there  is  a  necessary  relation  between 
an  animal's  way  of  life  and  that  of  its  globules.  If  the 
microscope  has  not  yet  caught  them  in  any  overt  living 
act,  who  can  be  surprised  ?  it  is  only  dead  blood  which 
has  been  submitted  to  the  test.  They  ought  to  be  ob- 
served in  the  exercise  of  their  functions,  in  the  living 
animal  itself,  as  has  been  done  to  some  extent  in  the 
frog  ;  and  if  our  foolish  chat  could  influence  scientific 
observers,  I  would  say  to  them  what  M.  Leverrier  said 
years  ago  to  the  astonished  astronomers  :  "  Look  yonder ; 
you  ought  to  see  a  light  there  with  which  you  are  not 
yet  acquainted  I" 

I  am  carrying  you  a  long  way  on  the  wings  of  my 
fancy,  my  dear  child  ;  but  have  no  fears  ;  I  will  not  let 
you  fall.  This  life  of  our  globules,  which  would,  after 
all,  be  only  one  mystery  the  more  among  many,  opens 
before  our  eyes  a  magnificent  vista  of  the  uniformity  in 
the  scheme  of  creation  ;  which  goes  on  repeating  itself, 
while  enlarging  its  circles  to  infinity.  We  may,  all  of 
"us,  be  only  so  many  globules  of  the  great  invisible  fabric 
of  humanity,  in  which  we  go  up  and  down  one  after  an- 
other ;  and  those  vast  globes  which  our  telescopes  fol- 
low through  celestial  space,  may  be  but  globules  of  one, 
as  yet  unknown,  to  which  the  Almighty  alone  can  give 
a  name. 

Take  this  page  to  your  father,  my  dear  child,  if  you 
do  not  understand  it  rightly  ;  and  now,  shake  hands,  my 
history  is  ended! 


PART  SECOND.  — ANIMALS. 


LETTER  XXIX. 

CLASSIFICATION  OF  ANIMALS. 

4  IT  is  dangerous  to  show  man  how  much  he  resembles  the  beasts,  without 
at  the  same  time  pointing  out  to  him  his  own  greatness.  It  is  also  danger- 
ous to  show  him  his  greatness,  without  pointing  out  his  baseness.  It  is 
more  dangerous  still  to  leave  him  in  ignorance  of  both.  But  it  is  greatly 
for  his  advantage  to  have  both  set  before  him.' — Pensees  de  Pascal. 

The  man  who*  wrote  that,  my  dear  child,  did  not  trouble 
himself  much  about  children.  He  was  one  of  the  gravest 
specimens  of  literary  genius — a  man  who  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  have  ever  been  a  child  himself ;  for  as  the  story 
goes,  he  was  found  one  day,  when  only  twelve  years  old, 
inventing  geometry,  and  his  father  only  saved  him  from 
trouble,  by  putting  the  great  book  of  Euclid  into  his 
hands  ;  and,  at  sixteen,  he  wrote  a  treatise  on  Conic 
Sections,  which  was  the  wonder  of  all  the  learned  men 
of  the  day.  I  have  not  a  very  clear  idea  of  what  Conic 
Sections  are  myself ;  but  I  tell  you  this  to  show  that  Pas- 
cal was  a  very  profound  and  learned  man,  under  whose 
authority,  therefore,  I  am  very  glad  to  take  shelter,  now 
that  I  am  going  to  set  before  you  the  very  startling 
points  of  resemblance  which  exist  between  you  and  the 
beasts. 

As  to  your  greatness,  it  delights  me  to  explain  it  to 
you.  It  is  not  due  to  the  handsome  clothes  you  wear 

(247) 


248  CLASSIFICATION  OF  ANIMALS. 

when  you  are  going  out,  nor  to  the  luxurious  furniture 
of  mamma's  drawing-room,  but  to  the  possession  of  that 
young  soul  which  is  beginning  to  dawn  within  you,  as 
the  sun  rises  in  the  morning  sky,  and  pierces  through  the 
early  mists  ;  in  that  growing  intelligence  which  has  ena- 
bled you  to  understand  so  far  all  the  pretty  stories  I 
have  told  you  •  in  that  fresh  unsullied  conscience,  which 
congratulates  you  when  you  have  been  good,  and  reproves 
you  when  you  have  done  wrong :  all  of  them  gifts  which 
are  not  bestowed  on  the  lower  animals,  or  certainly  not 
to  the  same  extent  as  upon  you — gifts  by  which  you  rise 
more  and  more  above  them,  the  more  they  are  developed 
in  yourself.  Your  baseness — but,  begging  Pascal's  par- 
don, I  cannot  call  it  baseness — your  connecting  link  with 
the  brute  creation  lies  in  those  other  gifts  of  God  which 
you  and  they  share  in  common — in  those  wonders  of  your 
organization,  which  we  shall  now  meet  with  in  them 
again,  in  full  perfection  at  first,  and  that  in  every  respect ; 
by  which  fact  you  may  learn,  if  you  never  thought  of  it 
before,  that  the  lower  animals  come  from  the  same  creat 
ing  hand  as  yourself,  and  ought  to  be  looked  upon  to 
some  extent  as  younger  brothers,  however  distasteful 
such  a  notion  may  seem  at  first. 

Societies  have  been  established  of  late,  both  in  France 
and  England,  for  the  protection  of  animals  ;  and  a  noble 
and  honorable  task  they  have  undertaken,  in  spite  of  the 
jokes  that  have  been  made  at  their  expense.  It  is  a 
mischievous  cavil  to  tell  people  who  are  doing  good  in 
one  direction,  that  more  might  have  been  done  some- 
where else.  Everything  hangs  together  in  the  progress 
of  public  morality,  and  you  cannot  strike  a  blow  at  cruel- 
ty to  animals  without  at  the  same  time  making  a  hit  at 
cruelty  to  man.  And  the  best  argument  in  favor  of  the 
rights  of  beasts  to  protection,  will  be  found  in  the  tour 


CLASSIFICATION  OP  ANIMALS.  249 

you  and  I  are  now  going  to  make  together  through  the 
different  classes  of  the  animal  creation. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  horse — one  of  the  beasts  which 
oftenest  needs  our  protection.  Give  him  the  mouthful 
of  bread  whose  history  we  have  just  finished.  He  ac- 
cepts it  as  a  treat,  and  needs  no  pressing  to  eat  it.  And 
if  it  could  tell  you  all  its  adventures  afterwards,  you 
would  find  that  you  were  listening  to  precisely  the  same 
story  as  your  own  over  again  ;  that  nothing  was  differ- 
ent, nothing  wanting.  First  of  all — teeth  to  grind  it, 
and  a  tongue  to  swallow  it  with,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Next  a  larynx,  which  hides  itself  to  avoid  it,  and  an 
cesophagus,  which  receives  it,  just  as  in  your  case ;  a 
stomach  with  its  gastric  juices,  the  same  as  yours,  in 
bagpipe  form,  and  its  pylorus,  like  your  own ;  a  lesser 
intestine,  into  which  bile  pours  from  a  liver  like  yours  • 
chyliferous  vessels  Vhich  suck  up  a  milky  chyle,  as  with 
you  $  farther  on  a  large  intestine  /  and  so  on  to  the  end. 
Nor  is  this  all : — the  horse  has  also  a  heart,  with  its  two 
ventricles,  and  its  double  play  of  valves  ;  a  heart  which 
the  little  girl  in  our  tale  might  confidently  have  exhib- 
ited to  the  engineers  as  her  own,  but  that  it  would  have 
been  somewhat  too  big,  of  course  ;  into  which  heart,  as 
into  ours,  comes  venous  blood,  to  be  changed  afterwards 
to  arterial ;  in  lungs  to  which  the  air  keeps  rushing, 
forced  thither  by  the  see-saw  action  of  a  diaphragm-, 
as  faithful  a  servant  to  him  as  to  you.  And  those  lungs 
like  our  own,  are  a  charcoal  market :  the  same  exchange 
takes  place  there,  of  carbonic  acid  for  oxygen,  as  in  ours, 
an  unanswerable  proof  that  the  stove  inside  the  horse 
burns  fuel  in  the  same  way  as  our  own :  and  if  you 
were  to  place  the  thermometer  inside  his  mouth  (for  we 
are  polite  enough  to  call  it  his  mouth),  it  would  mark 
37  1-2  degrees  of  heat  (centigrade)— a  difference  from 


250  CLASSIFICATION   OF   ANIMALS. 

ourselves  not  worth  mentioning.  Finally,  if  you  examine 
his  blood,  you  will  meet  with  the  same  serum  and  clot, 
the  whole  company  of  hydrodorates,  phosphates,  carbon- 
ates, <&c.,  from  which  we  shrank  before,  and  globules 
made  like  your  own  ;  having  the  same  construction,  and 
the  same  life,  or  action,  if  you  like  it  better.  I  need 
scarcely  add  tha't  100  oz.  ofitsfibrine  and  albumen  con- 
tain 

Of  carbon  63  oz. 

Of  hydrogen      -  7 

This  is  understood  all  along  as  being  the  case  every- 
where, from  man  down  to  the  turnip  ;  so  that,  like  you, 
this  noble  animal,  as  the  horse  is  called,  is  in  point  of 
fact  only  so  much  carbon,  so  much  water,  and  so  much 
air,  joined  to  a  handful  of  salt,  which  represents  the 
earth's  share  in  the  bodies  of  animals. 

You  must  confess  that,  if  we  cannot  quite  call  the 
horse  a  fellow-creature,  he  is  nevertheless  very  like  us. 
And  it  is  the  same  with  all  those  animals  which  man 
makes  use  of  as  his  servants,  and  which  have  really  a 
sort  of  right  to  the  protection  of  society,  since  they  form, 
to  a  certain  extent,  a  portion  of  the  human  family.  I 
do  not  speak  here  of  the  dog,  who  pays  his  taxes,  poor 
fellow,  in  his  quality  of  friend  to  man. 

When  I  think  of  the  almost  identical  organization  of 
man  and  his  next-door  neighbors,  I  am  astonished  how 
it  could  possibly  have  come  into  the  head  of  a  certain 
learned  individual  (I  will  not  mention  his  name),  when 
drawing  up  a  plan  of  natural  history,  to  give  to  man  a 
separate  kingdom,  as  a  sequel  to  the  three  kingdoms 
already  established — the  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal. 
One  might  have  forgiven  Pascal  if  such  an  idea  had  got 
into  his  head  after  writing  his  treatise  on  Conic  Sec- 
tions ;  there  being  nothing  in  them  to  throw  light  on 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   ANIMALS.  251 

such  a  subject.  But  in  a  naturalist,  an  observer  .who 
had  spent  his  life  in  the  study  of  living  creatures,  the 
thing  seems  almost  incredible.  Possibly  he  had  reasons 
for  what  he  did,  but  he  certainly  did  not  find  them  in 
the  subjects  of  his  studies. 

Forgive  me,  my  dear  child,  for  forgetting  you  in  this 
fit  of  indignation  upon  a  point  you  cannot  care  much 
about.  It  leads  me  naturally  enough  to  my  present  busi- 
ness, which  is  none  of  the  easiest,  but  you  must  help  me 
by  paying  attention.  I  am  going  to  describe  the  classifi- 
cation of  the  animal  kingdom. 

There  are  a  terrible  number  of  animals,  as  you  know  ; 
and  if  we  wish  to  study  them  to  any  real  purpose,  we 
must  begin  by  introducing  some  sort  of  order  into  the 
innumerable  crowds  which  throng,  pell-mell,  around  us 
for  observation.  We  should  otherwise  never  know 
where  to  begin,  or  when  we  had  come  to  an  end. 

There  are  many  ways  of  setting  a  crowd  in  order,  but 
they  all  go  upon  the  same  plan.  The  individuals  com- 
posing the  crowd  are  parcelled  off  into  companies,  each 
company  having  a  distinguishing  mark  peculiar  to  those 
who  compose  it.  Thus  the  first  division  is  into  a  few 
large  companies,  which  are  afterwards  subdivided  into 
smaller  ones,  and  those  into  others  still  less,  until  the 
divisions  have  gone  far  enough*  And  this  is  what  is 
called  a  classification. 

Let  us  imagine,  as  an  example,  a  large  crowd  in  a 
public  garden  ;  I  will  soon  classify  it  for  you.  I  shall 
put  the  men  on  one  side  and  the  women  on  the  other. 
Then — to  begin  with  the  women — I  shall  subdivide  them 
into  married  and  single.  Then  among  married  women 
I  shall  make  a  company  of  mammas,  and  another  of  those 
who  have  no  children.  Among  the  unmarried  I  shall 
have  a  group  of  those  who  have  never  been  married — 


252  CLASSIFICATION  OF  ANIMALS. 

girls,  that  is — and  another  of  widows — those  who  were 
once  married,  but  are  so  no  longer.  Then,  following  the 
girls,  I  shall  separate  them  into  tall  and  short.  And 
among  the  short  ones  I  shall  divide  the  brunettes  from 
the  blondes,  and  so  I  shall  get  at  last  to  a  little  blonde 
girl,  whose  classification  (were  she  a  soldier)  in  military 
rank  would  be  as  follows  : — squadron  of  blondes  j  com- 
pany of  shorts  ;  battalion  of  girls  5  regiment  of  unmarried 
women  ;  division  of  women.  The  division  of  men  could 
be  carried  out  in  the  same  manner  ;  and  thus  we  should 
classify  our  mob  into  complete  military  order.  This  is 
easy  enough,  however  ;  but  the  classifying  of  animals  is 
a  very  different  affair,  and  I  will  tell  you  why.  We  our- 
selves require  a  classification  to  study  them  by,  though 
none  was  needed  for  their  creation.  The  Almighty  has 
formed  them  all  on  one  uniform  plan,  around  which  He 
has,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  lavished  an  infinity  of  modi- 
fications separating  species  from  species,  yet  without 
placing  between  the  different  species  those  fixed  barriers 
which  we  should  require  now  to  enable  us  to  classify 
them  strictly.  You  who  are  learning  the  pianoforte 
have  perhaps  been  told  the  meaning  of  a  theme  of  music 
— the  first  idea  of  the  composer  who  follows  it  through- 
out the  piece  from  one  end  to  the  other,  embroidering 
on  it,  as  on  a  bit  of  canvas,  a  thousand  variations  melt- 
ing one  into  another.  Such  is  pretty  nearly,  if  we  may 
venture  the  comparison,  the  way  in  which  we  can  picture 
to  ourselves  the  Almighty  moving  through  the  work  of 
animal  creation.  Step  in  afterwards  and  divide  away 
into  regiments  and  battalions,  if  you  please.  Nature 
permits  it,  but  she  will  never,  to  accommodate  your  clas- 
sifications, separate  what  in  her  is  really  united. 

There  is  still  a  way,  however,  and  that  is  to  do  as  1 
did  just  now  in  the  case  of  the  crowd.    To  take,  viz., 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   ANIMALS.  253 

only  one  character  (as  we  call  a  distinguishing  mark  in 
natural  history),  and  to  throw  together  all  the  individ- 
uals which  possess  it,  the  blondes,  the  shorts,  the  girls, 
&c.  In  this  way  it  may  soon  be  done  ;  but  what  is  the 
result  ?  You  are  in  one  class,  your  eldest  sister  is  in 
another,  your  mamma  in  a  third,  and  your  brother  in  a 
different  division  altogether,  a  long  way  from  you  all. 
Such  a  classification  is  called  artificial,  and  you  can  see 
at  once  that  it  is  worthless. 

The  most  natural  plan  is  to  put  together  those  that 
are  of  the  same  family  ;  and  the  classifications  made  on 
this  principle  are  called  natural  classifications. 

It  is  a  classification  of  this  sort  which  has  been  adopted 
for  the  animal  kingdom.  People  have  taken  all  the  ani- 
mals which  possess  in  common  not  one  character  only, 
but  a  collection  of  characters  of  the  most  important  kind, 
dominant  characters,  as  they  are  called  ;  and  of  these  ani- 
mals they  have  formed,  to  begin  with,  large  primary 
groups  ;  subdividing  these  afterwards  according  to  the 
secondary  differences,  which  distinguish  different  species 
in  the  same  group  from  each  other. 

In  this  manner  all  the  different  sorts  of  animals  are 
included  in  different  systematic  divisions  of  one  vast 
whole,  through  which  it  is  easy  to  find  one's  way,  be- 
cause there  is  a  beginning  and  an  end ;  and  in  which 
animals  of  the  same  family  are  always  grouped  side  by 
side.  Were  I  to  mention  all  the  divisions  of  this  im- 
mense classification  at  once,  you  would  find  the  account 
a  little  long,  and  not  very  amusing.  We  will  go  through 
them  by  degrees  therefore,  and,  to  simplify  matters,  will, 
throughout  the  whole,  only  consider  those  particular 
characters  which  are  connected  with  our  special  study, 
the  nourishment  of  life,  that  is  to  say :  so  that  you  will 
always  find  yourself  on  well-known  ground. 


254  CLASSIFICATION   OF   ANIMALS. 

I  must  tell  you  once  for  all,  however,  that  it  is  with 
this  as  it  is  with  grammar.  Here  and  there  are — and 
it  cannot  be  avoided — certain  exceptional  cases  which 
keep  protesting  timidly  against  the  arbitrariness  of 
rules  ;  but  no  matter  ;  we  must  be  contented  with  what 
we  can  get,  and  be  grateful  into  the  bargain  to  those 
who  have  given  us  this  skillful  classification,  at  once  so 
ingenious  and  useful,  in  spite  of  its  inevitable  imperfec- 
tions. What  is  impossible  is  expected  of  nobody.  You 
could  not  understand,  even  if  I  wished  to  explain  it  to 
you,  the  amount  of  science,  labor  and  genius  requisite 
for  making  out  that  long  list,  which,  tiresome  as  it  may 
seem  to  children,  is  absolutely  beautiful  in  the  eyes  of 
learned  men  ;  too  beautiful,  perhaps,  and  I  will  tell  you 
why  when  we  have  finished.  Meantime,  as  the  best  re- 
ward we  can  give  to  those  who  have  done  us  some  great 
service  is  to  teach  their  names  to  children,  I  will  tell 
you,  before  bidding  you  good-bye,  to  whom  we  owe  this 
classification,  the  details  of  which  I  do  not  enter  upon 
to-day. 

In  the  first  place,  we  owe  the  method  employed  in  its 
establishment,  the  method  of  natural  classification ,  i.e.t 
to  a  learned  man  of  the  last  century — a  learned  French- 
man, Bernard  de  Jussieu — who  tried  it  upon  plants  ; 
another  large  flock  by  no  means  very  easy  to  put  in 
order,  as  you  may  convince  yourself  any  day  by  study- 
ing botany.  The  man  who  applied  this  system  to  ani- 
mals was  also  a  learned  Frenchman,  the  clearness  of  the 
French  mind  adapting  them  peculiarly  for  that  sort  of 
work.  And  he,  too,  is  one  of  the  glories  of  that  nation. 
His  labors  and  discoveries  gave  a  perfectly  new  impulse 
to  the  study  of  nature.  It  was  George  Cuvier,  whose 
statue  you  may  see  at  Montbeliard,  if  you  should  ever 
go  there.  Not  that  Cuvier  carried  through  this  gigantic 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  AXIMALS.  255 

work  alone,  though  the  credit  of  it  is  justly  his  due,  he 
having  directed  and  inspired  it.  He  was  assisted  by 
many.  But  among  his  assistants  there  was  one,  Lauril- 
lard,  the  most  modest,  yet  the  most  active  of  all,  whose 
name  I  will  mention  also,  because,  like  the  others,  more 
or  less  celebrated,  he  has  never  had  his  reward.* 

*  In  the  earlier  editions  of  this  work,  there  was,  in  this  place,  a 
severe  reproach  upon  Cuvier  for  not  having  given  proper  credit  to 
Laurillard.  This  reproach  I  have  since  learned  was  unjust.  M. 
Valenciennes  himself,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  the  collaborators 
of  the  great  Cuvier,  has  written  me  a  letter  in  which  he  defends 
the  reputation  of  his  friend  with  a  warm  indignation  which  does 
honor  to  both  of  them ;  and  cites  passages  in  which  Cuvier  has 
spoken  of  Laurillard,  and  among  others,  in  the  third  volume  of  the 
Ossements  Fossiles,  p.  32,  ed.  of  1822. 

It  only  remains  for  me,  therefore,  to  let  the  lash,  which  I  was 
laying  upon  the  shoulders  of  another,  fall  now  upon  my  own,  and 
to  deplore  the  too  great  facility  with  which  I  had  credited,  without 
sufficient  proofs,  an  assertion  which  I  had  otherwise  good  reason  to 
believe  to  be  exact — coming  to  me,  as  it  did,  from  Montb61iard  him- 
self, on  the  testimony,  it  is  said,  of  the  family  of  Laurillard.  From 
this  avowal,  a  little  painful,  I  confess,  my  young  readers  may  learn 
the  inconvenience  of  rashly  condemning  others !  As  I  said  in  the 
concluding  passage,  which  truth,  only  too  late,  now  compels  me  to 
suppress — "  The  truth  is  sure  to  come  out  at  last." 


LETTER  XXX. 

MAMMALIA.     (Mammals.) 

Do  you  remember  of  my  talking  of  the  vertebral  column 
when  I  was  describing  that  great  artery,  the  aorta,  to 
which  it  forms  a  rampart  of  defence  ?  I  should  not  have 
named  it  without  explanation,  but  that  you  had  only  to 
pass  your  hand  down  your  back  to  find  out  what  it  was. 
Now  the  vertebral  column,  or  backbone,  is  one  of  those 
dominant  characters  which  always  carries  along  with  it 
a  train  of  other  points  of  resemblance  in  the  animals 
where  it  is  found.  It  has  been  chosen,  therefore,  as 
the  rallying-point  of  the  first  great  group.  I  must  tell 
you  beforehand  that  there  are  four  of  these  groups,  four 
large  companies,  i.e.,  which  naturalists  have  called  by 
various  names  ;  as  Groups,  Sections,  Primary  Divisions 
and  even  Branches ;  in  this  case  comparing  them  to 
four  great  branches  of  a  tree,  going  off  in  different  di- 
rections from  the  same  trunk. 

And,  first  of  all,  we  have  to  begin  with  the  group  of 
the  Vertebrata — vertebrata  animals — vertebrata  being  a 
word  which  explains  itself. 

Of  course  we  ourselves  belong  to  this  group.  •  In  fact, 
we  are  at  the  head  of  it ;  but  it  descends  far  below  us. 
It  goes  on  to  the  frog  and  the  fish,  and  includes  the 
monkey,  the  ox,  the  fowl  and  the  lizard  ;  for  all  these 
creatures  possess  the  vertebral  column.  The  frog  does 
not  appear  to  be  very  much  like  us  at  first  sight ;  and  yet, 
(256) 


MAMMALIA.  257 

by  virtue  of  its  vertebra,  it  has  its  points  of  resemblance 
to  us,  which  are  worth  the  trouble  of  considering. 
Vertebrated  animals  are  all  furnished  with  a  head, 
containing  a  brain,  which  gives  its  orders  to  the  whole 
body  ;  they  have  all  an  internal  skeleton,  that  is  to  say, 
a  system  of  bones  linked  together,  forming  a  solid  base 
by  which  all  the  organs  are  supported.  I  was  going  to 
add  that  they  have  all  four  limbs  ;  but  here  the  serpent 
glides  in  to  call  me  to  order,  and  to  hiss  at  our  childish 
craving  for  fine-drawn  divisions,  in  perfect  order,  where 
there  is  an  exactly  proper  place  for  everything.  How- 
ever, each  has,  without  exception,  a  heart,  with  its  net- 
work of  blood-vessels  ;  red  blood,  under  its  two  condi- 
tions of  arterial  and  venous  ;  and  also  a  digestive  tube, 
acting,  on  the  whole,  pretty  much  like  our  own.  I  do 
not  insist,  mind,  upon  this  last  point,  viz.,  that  of  the 
digestive  tube  ;  for  we  shall  see,  by-and-by,  that  it  is  a 
character  beyond  the  pale  of  the  primary  groups.  It 
is  the  fundamental  character  of  the  trunk  itself,  which 
necessarily  exists,  therefore,  in  all  the  groups  ;  and,  as 
I  told  you  in  my  first  letter,  you  will  find  it  every- 
where. 

This  is — to  let  you  into  the  secret  at  once — the  theme 
on  which  the  Great  Composer  has  based  all  His  infinite 
varieties  of  animal  life  ;  and  herein  lies  the  uniformity 
of  the  animal  creation,  that  startling  uniformity  which 
has  given  so  much  offence  to  many  learned  men,  and 
which  is  so  obvious  that  it  will  strike  you  of  itself,  I  feel 
sure.  But  I  reserve  this  subject  to  the  end  of  my  let- 
ters-, when  you  will  have  heard  all,  and  be  able  to  judge 
for  yourself. 

It  would  be  plunging  back  into  confusion  to  attempt 
to  examine  all  the  vertebrated  classes  at  once.  After 
making  a  division  you  must  go  on.  The  groups  have, 


258  MAMMALIA. 

therefore,  been  subdivided  into  Jive  classes,  which  we  will 
study  in  succession,  only  naming  each  now  :  viz.  mam- 
mals, birds,  reptiles,  fish,  and  batrachians.  Do  not 
alarm  yourself  at  this  last  name :  it  is  a  Greek  word, 
meaning  simply  frogs. 

The  mammals  are  our  immediate  neighbors.  Mam- 
malia are  the  animals  which  produce  milk.  They  bring 
forth  their  young  alive,  and  give  suck  to  them  as  soon 
as  they  are  born.  This  was  your  first  nourishment, 
my  dear  child,  so  you  yourself  are  a  little  mammal. 

What  I  said  to  you  in  the  last  letter  about  the  horse, 
applies  pretty  nearly  as  well  to  all  mammals.  We  shall 
not,  therefore,  have  any  great  variations  to  notice  here. 
Nevertheless,  as  these  are  the  animals  which  interest  us 
most  nearly,  as  they  are  in  fact  our  nearest  of  kin,  so  to 
speak,  and  those  with  whom  we  have  the  most  to  do,  we 
will  now  pass  in  review  the  different  orders  of  which 
their  class  is  composed.  I  must  explain  to  you  that  the 
classes  are  subdivided  into  orders,  the  orders  into  families, 
the  families  into  genera,  the  genera  into  species ;  as  in 
armies  divisions  subdivide  into  regiments,  regiments  into 
battalions,  &c.  It  became  necessary,  moreover,  to  make 
use  of  special  names,  in  order  to  make  these  subdivisions 
comprehensible,  and  the  following  are  those  which  have 
been  adopted. 

ORDER  1.  Bimana  (two-handed}. 

Here  we  may  pass  on  at  once,  for  we  have  discussed 
this  order  enough  already.  We  are  bimane  ourselves, 
since  we  have  the  distinction  of  possessing  two  hands. 
Yes  ;  that  is  the  pretty  title  which  the  professors  have 
been  so  polite  as  to  give  us,  instead  of  leaving  us  simply 
our  proper  name  of  man.  Yet  it  would  have  been  very 
easy  to  do  this,  seeing  that  we  are  the  only  family,  the 


MAMMALIA.  259 

only  genus,  and  the  only  species  of  the  order.  In  rail- 
way travelling,  people  of  distinction  have  a  reserved 
carriage  to  themselves  :  so  we  decidedly  deserve  an 
order  to  ourselves  ;  but  that  is  not  quite  the  same  as  a 
separate  kingdom.  In  short,  you  are  a  bimane  •  so  make 
the  best  you  can  of  it. 

ORDER  2.  Quadrumana  (four-handed). 

These,  as  their  name  indicates,  have  four  hands  :  two 
at  the  end  of  the  arms,  and  two  at  the  end  of  the  legs  ; 
such  are  the  monkeys.  There  is  nothing  to  remark ; 
they  are  all  alike.  Stay  ;  I  am  wrong,  though  :  there 
is  something,  insignificant  it  is  true,  but  still  pointing  to 
deviation.  In  some  the  canine  teeth  are  set  forward,  i.  e. 
project,  and  are  longer  than  the  rest,  and  some  species, 
as  the  ape,  for  instance,  have  just  under  their  cheeks 
convenient  little  pockets,  which  open  into  the  mouth,  and 
in  which  they  can  deposit  a  reserve  of  nuts  to  be  de- 
voured at  leisure  ;  these  are  called  pouches. 

It  is  a  trifle  in  itself,  but  we  have  here  a  first  example 
of  the  eccentricities  of  nature  in  the  construction  of 
animals.  At  one  time  she  adds  a  detail ;  at  another 
she  suppresses  one.  Sometimes  she  is  pleased  to  enlarge 
an  oijgan,  as  in  the  canine  teeth  of  the  monkey  ;  some- 
times she  reduces  it ;  or  perhaps  here  she  makes  its  con- 
struction more  simple;  there  again  more  complicated: 
but  still  it  is  always  the  same  organ.  So  the  dressmaker 
shapes  the  sleeves  of  a  dress,  sometimes  open,  sometimes 
closed,  flat  or  puffed,  plain  or  ornamented,  pagoda-shaped 
or  gigot-formed  :  but  still  they  are  all  of  them  sleeves. 

ORDER  3.   Cheiroptera  (wing-handed). 

I  am  quite  ashamed  of  offering  you  such  a  word  as 
this,  my  dear  child.  It  was  a  Greek  fancy  of  the  learned 


260  MAMMALIA. 

men,  who  would  not  condescend  to  use  the  vulgar  name 
Bats.  In  the  Greek,  cheir  means  hand,  and  pteron  wing. 
The  Cheiroptera  are  animals  with  winged  hands  j  in 
fact,  the  fingers  which  terminate  the  fore-limbs  of  the 
bat  lengthen  as  they  spread  out  to  an  extravagant  ex- 
tent ;  and  are  connected  together  by  a  membrane  spring- 
ing from  the  body,  with  which  they  beat  the  air  as  with 
a  wing,  and  which  enables  them  to  fly  with  such  ease 
that  they  are  often  taken  for  birds. 

But,  so  far  from  really  being  a  bird,  this  curious  little 
creature  has  the  same  internal  organization  as  ours,  and 
indeed  comes  so  near  us,  though  without  looking  as  if  it 
did,  that  a  scientific  man,  and  a  very  distinguished  one 
too,  placed  the  bat  in  the  first  family  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  with  the  monkey,  and,  you  will  hardly  believe 
it,  with  man.  It  is  found  that  the  bat,  like  man  "and 
the  monkey,  suckles  its  young  at  the  breast ;  and  it  was 
this  very  character  which  Linna3us,  the  leader  of  arti- 
ficial classification,  thought  of  selecting  as  the  distin- 
guishing mark  of  his  first  family  in  the  animal  kingdom. 
It  is  true  that  in  honor  of  the  human  race  he  had  given 
that  first  family  a  much  more  sonorous  name  than  our 
usual  one  of  man — viz.  primates,  the  first  in  rank — that 
is,  the  princes.  But,  alas !  we  were  to  be  princes  on  an 
equality  with  bats  ;  and,  for  my  own  part,  I  prefer  being 
a  bima?ie,  and  alone.  I  really  believe  that  it  was  to  put 
this- saucy  little  creature  back  into  its  proper  place  that, 
at  the  time  of  the  great  revolution  in  favor  of  natural 
classification,  the  conclave  of  professors  assembled  at 
the  Botanical  Gardens  in  Paris  inflicted  this  horrid  name 
of  Cheiroptera  on  the  bat,  ejecting  it  contemptuously 
from  the  overthrown  dynasty  of  the  primates. 

I  have  not  been  sorry  to  make  you  acquainted  as  we 
went  along,  with  this  little  trait  in  the  history  of  classifi- 


MAMMALIA.  261 

cation  ;  but  beyond  it  there  is  really  nothing  particular 
to  say  'about  the  apparatus  for  the  nourishment  of  the 
deposed  bat-princes,  which  is  a  plain  proof  how  nearly 
it  must  be  like  our  own.  By-the-by,  there  is  one  trifling 
remark  to  be  made  with  regard  to  her  teeth.  The  bats 
we  have  in  our  country  (France),  for  there  are  many 
varieties  of  species  in  the  world,  live  on  insects,  which 
they  catch  in  their  flight  by  night.  These  insects  are 
often  enveloped  in  a  very  hard  outer  case,  which  molars 
like  ours  would  have  some  difficulty  in  chewing  properly  ; 
consequently  the  molars  of  our  little  friend  are  fringed 
with  conical  points,  and  with  these  she  grinds  down  her 
prey  without  difficulty. 

In  America  there  is  a  large  bat,  the  vampire,  which 
lives  on  the  blood  of  animals,  and  nature  has  armed  it 
accordingly.  It  has  at  the  extremity  of  its  muzzle  two 
sharp  beak-like  incisors,  like  the  lancets  of  a  surgeon. 
The  vampire  bat,  which  roams  by  night  like  other  bats, 
goes  straight  at  the  large  animals  it  sees  asleep,  deli- 
cately opens  a  vein  in  the  throat  without  waking  them, 
and  sucks  their  blood  in  long  draughts,  taking  care,  by 
fanning  them  with  its  wings,  to  lull  them  into  a  cool  and 
balmy  slumber.  It  does  not,  as  you  see,  make  a  savage 
attack  on  its  victim  :  it  merely  inflicts  a  bite  like  that 
of  the  leech,  but  the  result  may  be  death.  This  is  the 
best  emblem  I  know  of  the  sycophant,  who  undermines 
your  soul  while  he  fans  your  vanity  ;  and  observe,  while 
we* are  on  the  subject,  that  this  species  has  always  had 
the  art  of  insinuating  itself  among  princes- 

ORDER  4.   Carnivora  (flesh-eaters). 

When  translated  into  English,  this  word  needs  no 
explanation.  And  here  we  have  the  tribe  of  Dears, 
wolves,  foxes,  weasels,  dogs,  cats,  tigers,  lions,  of  all 


262  MAMMALIA. 

the  fighting  animals,  i.  e.,  those  which  steep  their  muz- 
zles in  blood,  and  live  by  devouring  others.  These 
have  a  similar  apparatus  for  nutrition  to  our  own ; 
especially  the  bear,  who,  with  the  monkey,  is  the  animal 
most  nearly  resembling  man,  seeing  that  he  has  feet  like 
ours,  with  scarcely  any  tail,  while  the  monkey  has  our 
hands,  without  specifying  any  other  points  of  resem- 
blance. Like  ourselves,  too,  the  bear  is  omnivorous  ; 
that  is  to  say,  it  eats  everything,  vegetables  and  fruit  as 
well  as  meat ;  and  nature,  which  has  given  it  our  diet, 
has  furnished  it  with  molars  almost  exactly  like  our 
own.  Its  canine  teeth  alone  differ  from  ours  :  they  are 
more  prominent  even  than  those  of  the  quadrumana  ; 
and  this  is  the  case  with  all  the  members  of  the  order, 
in  whom  we  find  them  sometimes  developed  into  actual 
daggers.  But  those  of  them  which  are  purely  carnivor- 
ous have  molars  peculiar  to  themselves.  The  lion,  for 
example,  who  does  not  share  the  bear's  taste  for  carrots, 
and  who  would  die  of  hunger  surrounded  by  the  honey 
and  grapes  of  which  the  bear  is  so  fond — the  lion,  who 
never  takes  anything  but  raw  meat  between  his  teeth, 
has  molars  furnished  with  sharp  cutting  edges,  intended 
to  slice  the  meat  like  the  chopping  knives  used  by  cooks 
for  making  a  hash. 

The  lion  offers  another  peculiarity,  which  is  common 
to  him  with  all  the  Carnivora.  Place  your  finger  close 
to  the  lower  end  of  your  ear,  and  work  your  jaw  ;  you 
will  feel  something  hard  moving  backward  and  for- 
ward against  your  finger.  This  is  where  the  lower 
jaw  is  set  into  a  bone  of  the  skull,  called  the  temporal, 
if  you  care  to  know  its  name  ;  in  other  words,  the  bone 
of  the  temple.  The  extremity  of  the  jaw  bends,  and 
forms  a  kind  of  little  knob,  called  condyle,  which  fits 
into  a  cavity  of  the  temporal  bone.  With  us  the  cavity 


MAMMALIA.  263 

is  not  very  deep,  nor  the  knob  very  large,  so  that  it  can 
play  very  freely  ;  and  it  is  this  which  allows  us  that  sec- 
ond movement  from  side  to  side,  of  which  I  spoke  to  you 
formerly,  and  thanks  to  which,  our  little  mills  reduce  a 
mouthful  of  bread  into  paste.  But  this  freedom  of  action 
has  also  its  inconveniences.  You  must  never  attempt 
to  force  too  large  an  article  into  your  mouth  at  once — 
an  apple,  for  instance — the  efforts  you  would  then  be 
obliged  to  make  might  easily  cause  the  condyle  to  slip 
out  of  its  little  cavity,  where  its  hold  is  but  slight,  and 
to  get  under  the  temporal  lone;  and  there  you  would  be 
with  your  mouth  wide  open  until  the  doctor  arrived. 
The  lion,  whose  voracious  jaw  opens  like  the  door  of  an 
oven,  so  that  the  tamers  of  wild  beasts  have  no  scruple 
in  thrusting  in  their  whole  heads,  a  mouthful  a  good  deal 
larger  than  an  apple ;  the  lion,  who  has  no  doctors, 
would  often  be  liable  to  this  accident — an  irremediable 
one  in  his  case — if  nature  had  not  made  a  special  pro- 
vision for  him.  In  order  to  secure  greater  firmness  and 
strength,  the  second  movement  is  in  his  case  sacrificed 
by  embedding  the  condyles  deeply  in  their  cavities,  where 
they  are  fastened  in  such  a  fashion  that  they  can  only 
move  up  and  down,  like  the  handles  of  a  pair  of  pincers. 
This  is  a  restraint  which  enables  the  jaw  to  be  safely 
thrown  open  as  wide  as  the  fiery  impulse  of  its  terrible 
proprietor  impels  it.  Less  freedom,  in  exchange  for 
more  power,  is  a  bargain  which  any  one  would  gladly 
accept  who  plays  the  part  of  a  lion  ! 

I  have  here  a  remark  to  make.  We  have  now  passed 
in  review  three  orders  besides  our  own,  and  have  only 
had  to  point  out  a  change  in  the  fastenings  of  the  jaws 
and  in  the  teeth  ;  and  you  will  find  that  the  same  sort 
of  modifications  take  place  in  the  whole  class  of  mam- 
mals. This  is  in  fact  the  essentially  movable  and  va- 


264  MAMMALIA. 

riable  point  in  their  apparatus  for  nutrition.  The  jaw 
and  its  weapons  vary  their  character  from  one  species  to 
another,  according  to  the  nature  of  their  food  ;  but  the 
modifications  generally  terminate  there,  i.  e.  on  the 
threshold,  as  it  were.  The  interior  arrangements  of  the 
house  remain  otherwise  much  the  same  in  all. 

Here,  however,  in  the  lion,  there  is  an  interior  change 
to  be  described  ;  but  not  in  the  arrangement  of  the  parts, 
only  in  their-size  ;  the  stomach  in  this  species  being  even 
smaller  and  weaker  in  proportion  than  ours,  and  the  di- 
gestive tube  more  than  twice  as  short.  The  digestive 
tube  of  an  ordinary  sized  man  is  about  seven  times  the 
length  of  his  body,  whilst  that  of  the  lion  only  measures 
three  times  the  length  of  the  animal.  This  is  a  natural 
consequence  of  the  kind  of  nourishment  he  takes.  Flesh 
and  blood,  on  which  he  lives  entirely,  is  concentrated 
albumen,  prepared  beforehand  in  the  bodies  of  his  vic- 
tims ;  so  that  no  great  preparation  is  needed  here  to 
convert  it  into  lion's  blood.  A  professor  of  chemistry, 
who  has  a  good  assistant,  does  not  need  a  very  large  lab- 
oratory. This  is  the  case  with  the  lion  ;  and  nature, 
which  makes  nothing  in  vain,  has  here  economised  space. 
Tame  the  monarch  of  the  forest  into  a  domestic  animal, 
and  change  his  food,  and  I  will  wager  any  tiling  you 
please  that,  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations,  his  diges- 
tive tube  will  lengthen  itself.  Examine  the  inside  of  the 
cat,  his  little  cousin,  formed  originally  on  the  same  pat- 
tern as  himself,  and,  without  having  ascertained  the  fact 
myself,  I  am  sure  that,  by  dint  of  feeding  it  daily  on  sops 
and  milk  from  generation  to  generation,  its  digestive 
tube  has  become  more  than  three  times  the  length  of  its 
body. 

Here  you  ought  to  be  told  at  once  a  very  important 
fact  relative  to  the  organization  of  the  lower  animals, 


MAMMALIA.  265 

one  which  places  them  all  very  far  below  the  order  of  Bi- 
mana,  since  there  is  such  an  order.  In  bestowing  intel- 
ligence and  freedom  of  action  on  man,  the  Almighty  has 
given  him  the  unspeakable  privilege  of  working  in  His 
footsteps — if  I  may  presume  to  use  the  expression — of  fol- 
lowing up  His  work  of  creation  as  it  came  from  His  hand. 
Now  especially  that  man  begins  to  see  a  little  more 
clearly  into  the  laws  of  life,  he  has  entered  more  di- 
rectly into  the  possession  of  this  almost  divine  privilege, 
which  the  Almighty  has  graciously  vouchsafed  him. 
You  can  even  now  have  an  ox  or  a  sheep  made  to  order 
in  England,  giving  your  dimensions,  as  if  you  were  or- 
dering a  cabinet ;  and  in  a  few  years,  if  you  have  not 
asked  actual  impossibilities,  your  commission  will  be  ex- 
ecuted to  within  an  inch.  This  is  not  said  in  reference 
to  the  Carnivora.  But  in  bidding  you  good-bye,  my 
dear  little  mammal,  I  could  not  bear  to  leave  you  under 
the  weight  of  that  debasing  title  :  I  wanted  also  to  show 
you  your  greatness. 


12 


LETTER  XXXI. 

MAMMALIA.     (Mammals) — continued. 

LET  us  continue  to  pass  in  review  the  different  orders 
of  the  class  Mammalia.  We  may  meet  elsewhere  with 
facts  more  important  to  science,  but  nowhere  with  any 
so  personally  interesting  to  ourselves. 

ORDER  5.    Insectivora  (insect-eaters). 

This  order  devours  insects,  as  their  name  tells  you 
plainly  enough.  They  feed  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
bats  ;  consequently  they  have  molars  like  theirs,  as  was 
necessary.  It  is  an  unimportant  little  family,  and  we 
will  not  waste  much  time  upon  it.  The  chief  of  the 
order  is  the  hedgehog,  a  native  of  our  country — not 
very  large,  about  nine  inches  long — which  lives  in  the 
woods,  and  which  when  rolled  up  into  a  ball,  with  all 
its  quills  standing  out,  looks  very  much  like  an  enor- 
mous horse-chestnut  in  its  shell.  Its  canines  have  not 
much  work  to  do,  consequently  they  are  very  small ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  its  two  front  incisors  are  pro- 
longed beyond  the  others,  the  better  to  seize  its  prey, 
which  creeps  upon  the  ground.  Internally  there  is  noth- 
ing to  remark  upon. 

Next  to  the  hedgehog  I  will  mention  as  a  curiosity 

the  shrew  or  sand-mouse,  which,  in  spite  of  its  name,  is 

no  mouse  at  all,  but  has  the  honor,  if  honor  it  be,  of 

being  the  smallest  animal  known  of  the  class  Mammalia. 

(266) 


MAMMALIA.  267 

It  is  about  two  inches  in  length  altogether  ;  and  if  you 
carefully  examine  its  little  body,  you  will  find  that  it 
contains  all  the  organs  you  possess  yourself— oesophagus, 
stomach,  liver,  intestines,  veins,  arteries,  heart,  lungs — 
nothing  is  wanting :  the  machinery  is  absolutely  the 
same. 

ORDER  6.    Rodentia  (rodents). 

Were  we  to  translate  this  word  into  its  meaning, 
namely,  the  Gnawers,  there  would  be  some  comfort  in 
it,  for  we  would  at  once  know  what  it  means  :  but  no 
matter.  Kodents,  or  Gnawers,  are  rats,  hares,  rabbits, 
beavers,  marmosets,  squirrels,  in  fact  all  the  creatures 
which  nibble.  To  nibble,  if  you  do  not  exactly  under- 
stand the  word,  means  to  chew  with  the  points  of  the 
teeth.  The  rodents  have  no  other  way  of  eating  but 
by  filing,  if  one  may  so  say,  their  food  with  the  points 
of  two  incisors  with  which  both  the  jaws  are  provided ; 
these  incisors  are  very  long,  much  longer  even  than  those 
of  the  hedgehog.  The  next  time  you  see  a  rabbit  at 
table,  ask  to  see  the  head ;  and  you  will  find  that  it 
has  four  pretty  little  teeth,  very  sharp,  shaped  like  a 
joiner's  chisel ;  that  is  to  say,  with  a  "  bevelled  edge," 
to  use  the  received  expression  ;  in  other  words,  with  one 
edge  thinner  than  the  other. 

Here,  then,  we  begin  to  diverge  from  the  old  model. 
First,  there  is  a  different  fastening,  or  articulation,  as 
it  is  called,  of  the  jaw.  Its  condyles,  which  we  saw 
just  now  in  the  Carnivora  enlarged  transversely  and 
deeply  embedded  in  the  fosses  or  cavity  of  the  temporal 
bone,  extend  here  longitudinally  ;  an  arrangement  which 
enables  the  jaw  to  move  backward  and  forward  at  pleas- 
ure, like  the  arm  of  the  locksmith  when  using  the  file. 
Furthermore,  those  little  teeth,  which  are  constantly 


268  MAMMALIA. 

rubbing  against  each  other,  would  be  very  soon  worn 
out,  if,  like  our  own,  they  were  made  once  for  all ;  ac- 
cordingly their  germ,  or  pulp,  to  use  the  proper  term, 
instead  of  perishing,  as  with  us,  when  the  tooth  has 
once  come,  retains  its  life,  and  works  on  throughout  the 
life  of  the  animal.  They  sometimes  say  of  a  man  who 
has  not  eaten  for  a  long  while,  that  his  teeth  have  grown 
l<5ng.  This  is  a  joke  with  us  ;  but  in  the  case  of  a 
rodent  would  be  too  serious  a  matter  to  be  a  joke  ;  for, 
as  their  incisors  are  always  growing,  like  our  nails,  they 
would  soon  become  too  long  if  the  animal  ceased  for 
any  length  of  time  to  wear  them  down  by  eating.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  rats  and  mice  have  such  incessant 
appetites,  and  that  with  them  "  all  is  fish  that  comes  to 
the  net ;"  old  books,  rags,  and  even  planks  of  wood, 
which  they  will  gnaw  for  want  of  something  better. 
Come  what  may,  they  must  keep  up  at  an  equal  rate 
the  wear  and  tear  of  the  incisors,  and  the  internal 
growth  of  the  pulp  beneath,  which  is  always  pushing 
the  tooth  forward.  This  dull  continuous  work  might 
otherwise  have  a  terrible  result,  which  you  would  never 
suspect.  It  is  very  disastrous  for  a  young  lady  to  lose 
a  front  tooth,  as  it  is  called,  for  it  sadly  spoils  a  pretty 
face  ;  but  for  a  rodent  such  a  loss  is  much  worse ;  in 
fact,  it  is  a  death-warrant.  The  corresponding  tooth, 
having  no  longer  anything  to  rub  against,  ceases  to  wear 
out ;  and  as  it  does  not  stop  growing  on  this  account,  it 
lengthens  indefinitely,  until  at  last  it  pushes  out  beyond 
the  mouth,  and  places  itself  like  a  bar  between  the  two 
remaining  teeth  and  the  food  of  the  animal,  who,  poor 
beast,  being  unable  to  eat,  ceases  to  live. 

The  canines,  whose  duty  it  is  to  pierce  the  food,  have, 
of  course,  no  use  in  a  jaw  that  grinds,  nor  are  they  to 
be  found  there.  Between  the  incisors  and  the  molars 


MAMMALIA  269 

there  is  a  large  vacant  space,  which  you  will  easily  de- 
tect if  you  examine  a  rabbit's  head. 

Finally,  animals  which  can  fall  back  in  time  of  need 
on  a  plank  for  their  dinner,  require  a  very  different- 
sized  cooking  apparatus  to  that  of  the  Carnivora. 
Thus  the  rat,  the  most  perfect  sample  of  the  rodent 
order,  possesses  a  digestive  tube  of  a  prodigious  length, 
through  which  the  scrapings  of  wood  have  plenty  of 
time  for  travelling,  while  the  minute  nutritive  particles 
they  contain  are  being  thoroughly  disengaged  ;  and  as 
every  part  of  the  animal  organization  tends  towards 
keeping  our  insatiable  rodents  in  the  constant  state  of 
voracity  required  by  its  inexorable  pulps,  nature  has 
given  it  an  enormous  heart  whose  size  exceeds  even 
that  of  its  stomach. 

Perhaps  you  do  not  catch  at  once  the  connection  which 
exists  between  the  size  of  the  heart  and  of  the  appetite ; 
yet  it  is  very  simple.  Large  barrels  are  requisite  for 
those  who  brew  a  great  deal  of  beer,  and  large  hearts 
for  those  who  make  a  great  deal  of  blood.  Now,  it  is 
the  blood,  as  you  know,  which  carries  heat ;  in  other 
words,  life,  throughout  the  body  ;  when  it  pours  in  in 
torrents,  the  fire  goes  twice  as  fast,  and,  consequently,  the 
feeding  must  be  kept  up.  A  medical  friend  of  mine  told 
me  that  he  once  had  some  rats  sent  to  him — a  boxfull 
in  fact — for  one  of  those  scientific  experiments  which 
one  would  venture  to  condemn  more  earnestly  if  their 
results  were  not  sometimes  beneficial.  Next  morning 
there  were  only  two  or  three  animals  to  be  found,  and 
these  had  eaten  up  the  others.  See  the  consequence  of 
having  too  much  heart ! 


270  MAMMALIA. 

ORDER  7.     Pachydermata  (thick-skinned^). 

In  Greek  pachus  means  thick,  and  derma  skin. 
Pachyderms,  therefore,  are  thick-skinned  animals.  It 
is  rather  a  vague  denomination,  as  you  perceive,  and 
does  not  tell  us  much  about  them  ;  but  it  appears  that 
it  was  not  very  easy  to  find  a  better  term.  For  my  own 
part  I  should  be  very  much  puzzled  to  find  a  name  really 
suitable  for  such  an  irregular  company  as  this,  in  which 
all  the  huge  beasts  of  the  earth — the  elephant,  the 
rhinoceros,  the  hippopotamus — are  heaped  one  upon  the 
other,  side  by  side  with  the  horse,  the  ass,  and  the  hog  ; 
begging  your  pardon  for  an  ugly  word. 

All  these  creatures  live  on  vegetables,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  hog,  to  whom  nothing  comes  amiss  ;  or  who, 
in  other  words,  is  omnivorous,  like  the  bear,  and  also 
another  member  of  the  class  Mammalia,  which  I  do  not 
name  for  fear  of  making  you  blush  at  your  companion- 
ship. This  assures  you  that,  in  the  order  of  the  Pachy- 
dermata, the  digestive  apparatus  is  very  fully  developed. 
The  horse,  for  instance,  has  a  very  voluminous  stomach, 
which  extends  much  farther  back  than  the  point  at 
which  the  oasophagus  empties  itself ;  and  in  which,  on 
close  examination,  a  sort  of  contraction  is  observed 
which  appears  to  divide  it  in  half,  producing  the  false 
effect  of  there  being  two  stomachs.  But,  after  all,  we 
do  not  find,  even  in  this  case,  any  essential  difference  to 
remark  upon  in  the  internal  arrangements  ;  it  is  always 
the  teeth  we  must  look  at  if  we  want  to  have  something 
to  say.  There,  indeed,  we  have  only  to  choose  ;  nature 
ha's  indulged  herself  in  all  manner  of  fantastic  freaks. 

To  begin  with  the  elephant,  the  grand  master  of  the 
order,  he  presents  us  with  one  of  the  most  oddly-furnished 
jaws  in  existence.  Every  one  knows  those  two  enor- 


MAMMALIA.  271 

raous  tusks  which  protrude  from  his  mouth,  and  which 
furnish  human  industry  with  nearly  the  whole  store  of 
ivory  it  has  need  of.  Those  two  teeth  are  the  largest, 
beyond  comparison,  of  any  in  the  animal  kingdom  ;  yet 
they  are  two  merely  ornamental  teeth,  perfectly  useless 
in  the  operation  of  eating,  and  very  ruinous  into  the 
bargain  to  the  proprietor.  All  those  stores  of  the  blood 
which  furnish  the  materials  for  ivory  pass  into,  these 
tusks,  and,  as  often  happens  to  people  who  give  way  to 
a  taste  for  luxuries,  there  is  nothing  left  wherewith  to 
provide  the  animal  with  serviceable  teeth.  Those  tusks 
of  the  elephant  are  nothing  but  his  upper  incisors,  the 
only  ones,  observe,  which  curve  in  coming  out  of  his  jaw. 
In  the  lower  jaw  he  has  no  incisors  at  all ;  canine  teeth 
are  entirely  wanting  ;  and  by  way  of  dental  apparatus, 
this  meagerly-furnished  mouth  possesses  on  each  side  of 
either  jaw  one  or  two  molars,  enormous  in  size,  but  not 
of  ivory.  They  are  composed  of  a  number  of  enamelled 
upright  layers  of  tooth-substance  (dentine),  soldered  to- 
gether with  a  bony  cement ;  and  these  are  our  giant's 
only  resource  for  chewing  the  grass,  young  shoots,  and 
leaves  of  trees,  which  are  his  natural  food.*  As  a  con- 
solation, he  has  the  glory  of  knowing  that  he  possesses 
the  very  finest  teeth  in  the  world,  the  terror  of  all  who 
approach  him ;  and  I  can  compare  him  to  nothing  so 
well  as  to  a  vain  woman,  who  is  contented  to  live  on 
potatoes  that  she  may  wear  fine  clothes  and  excite  the 
envy  of  her  neighbors. 

The  hippopotamus  also  has  incisors  in  the  upper  jaw, 
which  curve  as  they  come  out  of  the  mouth;  but  these 
never  attain  anything  like  the  size  of  the  elephant's 
tusks,  neither  do-  they  hinder  the  development  of  the 

*  These  teeth  are  nevertheless  very  efficient  grindstones. 


272  MAMMALIA. 

other  teeth,  of  which  this  animal  has  a  very  respectable 
collection.  The  upper  incisors  bend  downward  ;  those 
in  the  lower  jaw  stand  out  horizontally,  and  terminate  in 
sharp  points  like  plough-shares  ;  and  indeed  the  hippo- 
potamus uses  them  for  tearing  up  the  ground  in  order  to 
get  at  the  roots  which  form  its  nutriment.  These  are, 
besides,  formidable  weapons,  with  which  when  enraged 
the  animal  can  tear  even  boats  in  pieces  ;  for,  as  you 
are  aware,  the  hippopotamus  is  almost  amphibious,  and 
browses  on  water-plants,  and  lives  in  the  great  rivers  of 
Africa,  its  native  country.  -Its  name  alone  would  have 
told  you  this  had  you  understood  Greek  ;*  but  I  have  no 
complaint  to  make  this  time,  for  it  was  the  Greeks  them- 
selves who  gave  it.  You  would  find  it  very  awkward, 
would  you  not?  if  you  had  to  breakfast  at  the  bottom 
of  the  Thames,  and  could  not  swallow  a  morsel  without 
having  your  nose  filled  with  water  ?  But  the  hippopot- 
amus labors  under  no  such  inconvenience.  Its  nostrils 
are  provided  with  two  little  doors,  which  it  closes  at 
will,  and  behind  this  screen  the  lungs  keep  quite  quiet 
while  the  animal  goes  backwards  and  forwards  in  the 
water.  There  is  generally  a  hippopotamus  in  every 
large  menagerie.  The  next  time  you  visit  one  look  at 
him.  You  will  see  him  with  a  large  stomach  almost 
trailing  on  the  ground  :  and  no  wonder  ;  he  needs  plenty 
of  room  in  which  to  stow  away  all  the  canes,  reeds,  and 
water-plants  from  the  bottoms  of  rivers,  which  are  not 
very  nutritious  food.  Accordingly  the  stomach  of  the 
river-horse  presents  the  appearance  not  only  of  two  com- 


horse,  and  Trora/zof  a  river.  The  Greeks,  who  had  seen 
the  hippopotamus  in  the  Nile,  in  Egypt,  named  it  the  river-horse  ; 
as  afterwards  the  Romans  called  the  elephant  the  ox  of  Lucania, 
because  they  first  saw  it  in  Lucania  during  the  war  with  Pyr- 
rhus. 


MAMMALIA.  273 

partments,  like  that  of  the  true  horse,  but  looks  as  if  it 
were  divided  into  three  or  four. 

To  conclude  my  account  of  this  animal,  I  must  add 
that  the  ivory  of  its  teeth  is  even  more  beautiful  than 
that  of  the  elephant's  tusks,  and  that  dentists  carve  it 
into  very  magnificent  teeth  for  their  patients.  This  is 
not  a  matter  to  interest  you  much  at  present,  but  we 
never  know  what  may  happen.  I  advise  you,  however, 
never  to  make  use  of  hippopotamus's  teeth ;  they  turn 
yellow  very  quickly,  and,  when  people  are  driven  to  buy 
teeth,  the  least  they  can  try  for,  is  to  get  good-looking 
ones  for  their  money. 

I  should  like  to  say  something  about  the  rhinoceros 
while  we  are  on  the  colossal  tribes,  but  it  is  a  very  un- 
satisfactory subject.  The  animal  has  no  canines,  some- 
times no  incisors  even ;  sometimes  it  has  as  many  as 
thirty-six  teeth,  according  to  the  species,  as  naturalists 
aver  ;  and  this  is  all  I  have  to  say  about  this  great  lump 
of  flesh,  so  misshapen  outside,  yet  so  regularly  formed 
within.  He  it  is  who  especially  deserves  the  title  pachy- 
dermata,  his  skin  being  so  hard  and  thick  that  bullets 
glance  off  its  surface.  But  this  has  nothing  to  do  with 
our  present  subject,  any  more  than  the  horn  upon  his 
nose,  whose  turn  for  description  may  come  if  I  ever  give 
you  the  history  of  the  skin  and  all  connected  with  it. 

The  hog  also  has  canines,  and  very  strong  ones  ;  but 
it  is  in  the  wild  state,  when  it  is  called  a  boar,  that  these 
appear  in  'their  real  form.  There  we  find  them  project- 
ing out  of  the  mouth  with  a  curve,  as  is  so  commonly 
seen  among  the  pachy 'dermata ,  forming  those  terrible, 
sharp,  and  pointed  tusks  which  have  been  so  often  fatal 
to  the  hunter.  The  wild  boar  of  the  forest  is  supposed 
to  be  the  original  ancestor  of  the  domestic  pig  ;  and  if, 
as  is  probable,  this  is  really  the  case,  we  have  here  a  re- 
12* 


274  MAMMALIA. 

markable  instance  of  the  effect  of  man's  treatment  upon 
the  organisation  of  the  animals  he  collects  around  him. 
The  wild  boar  lives  only  on  fruits  and  roots,  which,  like 
the  hippopotamus,  he  tears  up  with  his  tusks,  those  safe- 
guards of  his,  amid  the  many  perils  of  his  life  in  the 
woods.  In  the  service  of  man,  on  the  contrary,  he  be- 
comes lazy,  cowardly,  and  greedy  ;  unlearns  his  energy 
and  combativeness,  eats  all  that  is  offered  to  him  in  the 
trough,  even  meat,  when  it  happens  to  be  thrown  in  ; 
and,  in  order  to  do  this  more  easily,  has  recalled  toward 
his  mouth  those  formidable  war-tusks  of  his,  so  tremen- 
dous as  weapons,  so  useless  as  teeth  ;  has,  in  fact,  turned 
his  sword  into  a  fork.  It  is  the  case  of  a  Tartar  degen- 
erated into  a  Chinaman.* 

This  suggests  to  me  an  idea  relative  to  the  horse,  the 
last  important  member  of  the  pachydermata  which  re- 
mains to  be  spoken  of.  It  also  has  its  canines,  but  very 
small  ones  ;  they  disappear,  so  to  speak,  in  a  large  va- 
cancy between  the  incisors  and  the  molars,  where  man 
inserts  the  bit,  by  means  of  which  the  animal  has  been 
subdued.  Small  as  these  are,  however,  these  canines  in- 
dicate that  the  horse  might  eat  flesh,  canine  teeth  being 
the  distinctive  attribute  of  the  carnivorous  mammals.  I 
have  read  somewhere,  but  I  do  not  remember  where,  that 
an  unusual  development  of  strength  could  be  produced 
in  the  horse  by  feeding  it  on  flesh  ;  and  the  old  Greek 
poets  write  of  a  kingf  in  the  barbarous  ages  who  gave 

*  China,  about  which  we  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  late  years, 
has  been  several  times  invaded  by  the  warrior  hordes  of  Tartary. 
But  at  each  time,  unto  the  second  and  third  generations,  the  van- 
quishers have  taken  the  effeminate  manners,  the  costume  and  the 
usages  of  the  vanquished,  and  so  many  conquests  have  only  resulted 
in  converting  millions  of  Tartars  into  Chinese. 

f  Diomed,  King  of  Thrace. 


MAMMALIA.  275 

his  horses,  men  for  food.  If  I  knew  some  rich  professor 
who  was  inclined  to  spend  money  in  the  investigation  of 
a  curious  fact,  I  would  advise  him  to  set  apart  a  sum  for 
putting  horses  on  a  meat  diet,  from  sire  to  son,  gradually 
increasing  the  quantity  ;  and  I  would  boldly  warrant 
that  in  the  course  of  successive  generations  the  canines 
would  become  so  large  as  to  impede  the  entrance  of  the  bit 
into  the  mouth,  and,  moreover,  would  make  it  rather  a 
ticklish  office  for  the  groom  to  place  it  there.  But  let  us 
set  aside  the  teeth  the  horse  might  possibly  have,  in 
order  to  examine  those  it  has  already.  There  are  six 
incisors  in  each  jaw  ;  these  are  long  and  rather  project- 
ing teeth,  by  examining  which,  the  age  of  the  horse  can 
be  detected  from  certain  marks  which  appear  in  them 
from  year  to  year.  The  molars  are  flat,  square,  furrow- 
ed with  bars  of  enamel,  marking  out  more  or  less 
distinct  crescents  ;  perfectly  constructed,  in  short,  for 
chewing  hay  and  oats.  Nevertheless,  I  should  never  be 
surprised  to  see  the  enamel  crescents  become  sharp-cutting 
in  our  rich  professor's  stable ;  so  skillful  is  the  unseen 
Architect  who  created  animals,  in  altering  the  house 
when  the  tenant  changes  his  habits. 

ORDER  8.    Ruminantia  (ruminants). 

I  shall  retain  through  life  a  pleasant  recollection  o'f 
the  ruminants.  Through  them  I  obtained  the  first  prize 
for  natural  history  which  was  ever  given  in  France  to 
the  pupils  of  the  learned  university.  It  is  thirty  years 
ago  since  this  happened,  and  I  own,  without  any  false 
modesty,  that  even  now  the  word  ruminant  rings  very 
agreeably  in  my  ear.  It  reminds  me  of  one  of  the  proudest 
moments  of  my  life,  of  the  honor  done  to  me  by  the 
illustrious  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire,  when  he  called  me,  a 
little  college  urchin,  up  to  him,  that  he  might  have  a 


276  MAMMALIA. 

nearer  view,  as  he  said,  of  the  baby-professor  who  had 
spoken  so  well  on  ruminants.  Yes,  it  is  more  than  thirty 
years  ago,  for  alas !  it  was  in  1831.  There  needed  no 
less  an  event,  as  I  have  told  you  before,  than  the  revo- 
lution of  1830  in  France  to  induce  the  big-wigs  of  edu- 
cation to  sacrifice  two  hours  per  week  in  one  class  to 
the  study  of  natural  history.  Yes,  my  dear  child,  it  is 
only  that  short  time  ago  since  natural  history  became  one 
of  the  subjects  of  study  in  French  colleges  ;  and  the  gray- 
haired  men  of  the  present  day  finished  their  education, 
as  it  is  called,  without  having  learnt  a  single  word  of 
what  I  am  now  taking  the  trouble  to  teach  you,  a  mere 
child.  You  see  you  have  come  "into  the  world  just  at  the 
right  time,  and  will  be  able  to  instruct  others  in  your 
turn.  But  before  giving  lessons  to  other  people  you  must 
first  finish  learning  your  own.  Forgive  me  this  involun- 
tary reference  to  a  happy  time  when  I  was  not  much 
more  rational  than  you  are.  And  now,  let  us  return  to 
our  ruminants — those  dear,  good  beasts,  the  nourishing 
fathers  of  the  human  race. 


LETTER    XXXII. 

MAMMALIA — continued. 
ORDER  8.    Ruminants — continued. 

EVERY  created  thing  has  an  appointed  part  to  perform ; 
but  there  are  some  mysterious  parts  of  which  we  cannot 
understand  the  drift.  That  of  the  ruminants,  -however, 
is  so  clearly  marked  out,  that  we  detect  it  at  a  glance. 

To  qualify  myself  for  supplying  your  young  mind  with 
the  food  I  am  going  to  offer  it  to-day,  I  have  been  oblig- 
ed, my  dear  child,  to  browse  in  a  good  many  books  of 
which  you  could  have  understood  but  little  yourself; 
and  I  have  been  forced  to  ruminate  a  long  time  upon 
what  I  have  read,  and  to  digest  it  slowly  in  my  head, 
which  I  may  say,  without  vanity,  is  of  larger  capacity 
than  yours  ;  no  great  wonder  at  my  age.  Now,  if  I 
have  succeeded  in  my  undertaking,  you  will  benefit  by 
all  the  work  which  has  been  going  on  in  my  mind 
for  the  purpose  of  feeding  yours  without  over-fatigue 
to  it ;  and  I  shall  almost  have  the  right  to  say  that 
its  nourishment  has  been  derived  from  me.  My  lamp 
could  tell  you  what  it  has  sometimes  cost  me  to  supply 
a  single  page  which  might  instruct,  without  repelling 
yon. 

Now,  this  is  precisely  what  the  ruminant  does.  The 
part  he  has  to  perform  is  to  collect  in  the  meadows  a 
sort  of  food  which  would  disgust  less  well-organized 

(277) 


278  MAMMALIA. 

stomachs  than  his  own,  to  work  it  well  up  within  him, 
and  to  give  it  back  in  a  more  palatable  and  less  in- 
digestible form.  The  little  flesh-eaters  (carnivora)  come 
afterwards  to  the  feast,  and  the  feast  is  himself ! 

The  whole  history,  then,  of  the  ruminant  is  to  be  read 
in  his  stomach.  His  real  office  is  to  digest,  and  in  fact 
he  devotes  the  best  hours  of  his  days  to  the  perfecting 
of  that  beneficent  labor,  on  which  the  life  of  so  many 
weak  stomachs  depends.  Have  you  ever  amused  your- 
self by  watching  a  large  ox  lying  down  in  a  meadow  ? 
Long  after  he  has  finished  grazing,  his  jaw  continues  to 
work,  turning  round  and  round  like  the  grindstone  of  a 
painter  when  he  is  rubbing  down  his  colors.  Look, 
and  you  will  see  that  he  will  remain  there  for  hours 
together,  motionless  and  contemplative,  absorbed  in  this 
incomprehensible  mastication,  rolling  about  in  his  throat 
from  time  to  time  some  invisible  food.  Do  not  laugh  at 
him,  however.  As  you  see  him  there  he  is  performing 
his  part  in  life,  he  is  ruminating. 

To  ruminate  is  to  chew  over  again  what  has  been  al- 
ready swallowed  ;  and,  however  droll  this  may  seem  to 
you,  it  is  the  business  which  all  ruminants  are  born  to. 
You  remember  the  monkey's  pouch,  which  serves  him  as 
a  larder,  whence  he  takes  out  his  provisions  as  he  wants 
to  eat.  The  ruminant  has  an  immense  pouch  of  the 
same  kind,  into  which,  while  he  is  grazing,  he  hastily 
conveys  large  masses  of  half-bitten  grass.  You  probably 
think  he  is  eating  when  he  has  his  head  down  in  the 
grass  ;  but  you  are  mistaken.  This  is  only  a  prepara- 
tory work ;  he  is  hastily  heaping  up  in  his  larder  the 
food  he  intends  to  eat  by-and-by ;  only  his  larder,  in- 
stead of  being,  like  the  monkey's,  in  his  cheeks,  where, 
indeed,  there  would  not  have  been  half  room  enough 
for  those  great  l!  undies  he  tucks  in,  is  in  the  middle  of 


MAMMALIA.  279 

his  body,  close  to  the  extremity  of  the  oesophagus,  whose 
lower  wall,  being  slit  at  that  part,  becomes  an  imperfectly 
secure  tube,  ready  to  burst  open  under  pressure,  and 
allow  the  food  to  escape  between  the  edges  of  the  slit ; 
these,  otherwise,  remaining  naturally  closed.  As  soon 
as  the  large  bundles  of  grass  come  to  this  part,  they 
press  against  the  walls  of  the  tube,  which  they  by  this 
means  separate,  and  fall  into  the  provision-pouch,  which 
bears  the  name  of  paunch,  or  grass-pocket,  in  fact.  As 
soon  as  the  paunch  is  well  filled,  and  the  animal  sure  of 
his  dinner,  he  lies  down  in  some  quiet  corner,  where  he 
proceeds  gravely  with  the  important  act,  which  is  the 
real  object  of  his  existence.  A  little  below  the  entrance 
to  the  paunch,  and  communicating  both  with  it  and  the 
canal  of  the  oesophagus,  is  a  second  receptacle,  which 
old  French  naturalists,  not  being  much  acquainted  with 
Greek,  named  the  cap,  on  account  of  its  fancied  resem- 
blance to  the  caps  worn  on  the  head,  and  which  we  call 
'  king's  hood '  or  '  honey-comb  bag.7  This  second  stom- 
ach now  contracts  (at  least  so  it  is  supposed),  and  thus 
retains,  as  if  with  a  closed  fist,  a  portion  of  the  grass 
accumulated  in  the  paunch :  of  this  it  forms  a  pellet, 
which  it  sends  back  into  the  oesophagus,  and  the  ceso- 
phagus,  by  continued  contractions  from  below  upwards, 
returns  it  to  the  mouth,  where  at  last  the  grassy  lump  is 
chewed  in  good  earnest,  and  to  some  purpose.  There  is 
no  necessity  for  hurry  ;  the  ruminant  has  no  other  busi- 
ness on  the  face  of  the  earth  but  this,  and  thus  hour 
after  hour  passes  away,  the  food  pellets  rising  one  after 
another  to  the  onslaught  of  the  teeth.  Nor  do  they  go 
back  again  until  they  have  been  reduced  by  long  masti- 
cation into  an  almost  liquid  paste,  which  glides  through 
the  oesophagus  without  forcing  open  the  slit,  and  falls 
straight  into  a  third  pouch,  called  by  old  Frenchmen  the 


280  MAMMALIA. 

leaf,  on  account  of  certain  large  folds,  somewhat  like  the 
leaves  of  a  book,  which  line  the  interior  ;  and  known 
to  us  as  the  manyplies.  From  this  stomach,  No.  3,  this 
grass-pap  passes  into  a  fourth  and  last  bag,  which  is  the 
real  stomach,  and  where  the  final  work  of  digestion  is 
accomplished.  This  fourth  pouch  also  has  a  pretty  little 
name  of  the  old-fashioned  sort,  like  the  three  others  ;  it 
is  called  the  reed  or  rennet-lag,  from  the  property  it 
possesses,  in  the  calf,  of  turning  milk  into  curds  :  and 
of  his  four  stomachs  this  is  the  only  one  which  the  rumi- 
nant makes  use  of  at  first.  As  long  as  the  young  ani- 
mal is  nursed  by  its  mother,  the  other  compartments  re- 
main inactive  and  small  in  size  ;  they  neither  grow  nor 
exercise  their  functions  until  it  begins  to  eat  grass.  In- 
deed, they  would  probably  entirely  disappear,  if  any  one 
would  go  to  the  expense  of  keeping  the  'animal  on  milk 
all  its  life.  If  it  ceased  to  have  anything  to  ruminate, 
nature  would  certainly  lose  no  time  in  relieving  it  of  its 
useless  workshop  of  rumination. 

As  it  is  right  to  give  every  one  his  due,  I  will  men- 
tion that  we  owe  our  accurate  knowledge  of  this  simple 
and  ingenious  mechanism  of  rumination  to  the  labors 
of  Flourens,  a  scientific  Frenchman,  who  is  still  alive, 
and  who  has  made  a  great  many  interesting  inquiries 
into  the  subject  we  are  now  considering,  i.  e.,  the  life  of 
animals.  He  is  a  very  clever  man  into  the  bargain — so 
perfect  a  master  of  his  own  language,  that  the  French 
Academy  has  felt  itself  justified  in  opening  its  doors  to 
him — an  unheard-of  honor  for  a  member  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  heartily 
congratulate  you  that  the  discovery  of  the  paunch,  the 
cap,  the  leaf,  and  the  rennet-bag,  was  not  delayed  for  his 
arrival.  He  is  just  the  man  who  might  have  been 
tempted,  in  his  capacity  of  profound  scholar,  to  have 


MAMMALIA.  281 

hunted  up  for  them  in  the  Jardin  des  ratines  grecques*, 
four  magnificent  names,  which  would  only  have  bewil- 
dered you. 

Beyond  the  rennet-bag  there  is  no  change  of  confor- 
-mation  to  note,  except  that  the  intestinal  tube  is  natu- 
rally much  longer  than  ours,  on  account  of  the  difference 
of  food  :  as  a  general  rule,  it  is  ten  or  twelve  times  the 
length  of  the  body.  The  sheep,  who  is  able  to  pick  up 
a  living  in  the  poorest  pastures,  is  indebted  for  this  in- 
estimable power,  which  makes  him  the  special  blessing 
of  dry  and  barren  countries,  to  a  still  further  peculi- 
arity of  organization ;  with  "him  the  intestinal  tube  is 
twenty-eight  times  the  length  of  the  body. 

We  have  seen  among  the  Carnivora,  whose  jaws  have 
so  much  work  to  do,  that  the  condyles  of  the  jawbone 
are  sunk  deeply  into  the  fossa  of  the  temporal  bone. 
The  ruminant,  whose  peaceful  mouth  is  formed  for  con- 
tending only  with  grass,  is  organized  quite  differently. 
Here  the  condyle  is  flattened,  and  the  fossa  of  the  tem- 
poral bone  very  shallow,  presenting  to  tfie  condyle  an 
almost  flat  surface,  so  that  the  jawbone  is  enabled  to  re- 
volve with  ease  for  the  better  mastication  of  the  pellets 
of  grass.  .  This  conformation  is  also  to  be  seen  in  the 
pachydermata  who  feed  upon  vegetables.  In  the  horse, 
especially,  whose  food  is  almost  the  same  as  that  of  the 
ox,  the  articulation  (as  this  joining  of  the  condyle  to  the 
temporal  bone  is  called)  of  the  jaw,  is  also  nearly  iden- 
tical ;  and  it  is  the  same  with  the  teeth,  with  very  tri- 
fling variations,  those  of  all  ruminants  are  constructed 

*  Your  brother  can  tell  you  about  the  Jardin  des  ratines  gretques. 
It  is  a  charming  little  book,  of  which  every  generation  of  collegians 
has  learnt,  by  heart,  the  commencement  ;  but  I  have  never  known 
one,  even  among  the  most  intrepid,  -who  had  ever  been  to  the  end 
of  it. 


282  MAMMALIA. 

on  the  same  plan  as  in  the  horse.  The  canines  only 
require  a  separate  notice. 

But  first  I  must  tell  you  that,  by  some  special  privi- 
lege, the  reason  for  which  I  do  not  undertake  to  explain? 
the  order  of  ruminants  is  the  only  one  containing  animals 
with  horns  on  their  foreheads.  Stags,  goats,  reindeer, 
chamois,  gazelles,  roebucks,  oxen,  buffaloes,  all  the  beasts 
with  horned  foreheads,  belong  to  the  ruminants.  Indeed, 
this  fact  would  form  a  very  convenient  mark  of  distinc- 
tion between  them  and  other  animals,  were  there  not 
exceptions  to  it.  Some  ruminants  have  no  horns  ;  and 
then,  as  if  in  compensation  for  the  deficiency,  we  find 
them  provided  with  canines  in  the  upper  jaw,  in  addition 
to  those  below. 

The  ruminant  which  has  the  most  beautiful  canines  is 
the  musk-deer,  a  pretty  little  animal  inhabiting  the  high- 
lands of  Central  Asia,  like  the  chamois  of  the  Alps. 
But  now  that  you  know  who  he  is,  you  will  probably 
often  be  tempted  to  wish  he  had  never  existed  ;  for  it  is 
from  a  small  pouch  below  his  belly  that  people  obtain  that 
odious  musk  of  which  Oriental  beauties  are  so  fond,  and 
which  even  certain  strong-nerved  ladies  of  our  own 
country  are  guilty  of  using  in  public,  to  the  great  detri- 
ment of  general  health.  But  enough  of  this  ;  our  busi- 
ness is  with  the  canines  of  the  musk-deer.  They  project 
with  a  descending  curve  from  the  upper  jaw,  and  would 
give  the  animal  the  very  false  appearance  of  a  small 
wild  boar,  but  for  the  great  delicacy  of  its  legs,  which 
are  more  slender  than  even  those  of  our  roebuck,  to 
whom,  with  the  exception  of  the  horns,  it  bears  a  close 
resemblance,  as  its  name  implies. 

After  the  musk-deer  conies  the  large  family  of  camels 
and  llamas,  which  represent — the  former  in  Asia  and 
Africa,  the  latter  in  America — the  irregular  groups  of 


MAMMALIA.  283 

ruminants  which  have  canines  instead  of  horns,  and 
which  seem  to  be  placed  as  intermediates  between  true 
ruminants  and  the  pachyderniata.  They  form  the  con- 
necting link  between  the  horse  and  the  ox,  and  men 
prefer  employing  them  as  beasts  of  burden  to  using  them 
as  butcher's  meat ;  though  one  could  eat  them  in  their 
own  country  with  less  disgust  than  Europeans  feel  in 
making  a  meal  of  horseflesh  ;  so  that  they  might  be  a 
very  acceptable  resource  in  many  cases.  The  real  fact 
is.  that  ruminants  with  horns  and  without  upper  canines 
have  more  delicate  flesh  than  the  others,  and  seem  more 
especially  destined  to  be  eaten.  Yet  if  one  had  only  to 
look  at  the  stomach,  which  is,  after  all,  the  distinctive 
characteristic  of  the  order,  camels  and  llamas  would 
stand  in  the  first  rank  as  ruminants.  Besides  the  usual 
character  of  four  stomachs,  their  paunch  and  honeycomb- 
bag  are  furnished  with  lage  cells  which  act  as  reservoirs, 
and  fill  with  water  whenever  the  animal  has  the  chance 
of  drinking  freely,  and  from  whence  in  time  of  drought 
he  draws  it  up  into  his  mouth  and  swallows  it.  This- 
is  what  makes  the  camel  so  valuable  to  the  wandering 
tribes  in  the  great  deserts  of  Africa  and  Asia.  He  is 
the  only  animal  who  can  pass  several  days  under  the 
burning  sun  of  Sahara  without  drinking — or  rather 
without  appearing  to  do  so — for  he  carries  his  provis- 
ion of  water  concealed  from  all  eyes  in  the  recesses 
of  his  body.  I  dare  say  you  have  often  heard  stories 
of  Arabs  dying  of  thirst  who  have  opened  the  stomachs 
of  their  camels  in  search  of  a  last  draught  of  water.  It 
must  be  a  terrible  thirst  to  drive  a  man  to  such  an  extrem- 
ity ;  for,  as  you  may  imagine,  one  could  not  expect  the 
water  there  to  be  either  fresh  or  clear,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  great  risk  there  would  generally  be  of  finding 
the  reservoir  empty.  Such  an  extreme  is  never  resorted 


284  MAMMALIA. 

to  till  water  has  failed  for  a  long  time,  and  all  the  goat- 
skin bottles  have  been  emptied  ;  and  in  such  a  case  it 
is  but  too  likely  that  the  camel  has  followed  his  master's 
example,  and  emptied  his  water-skins  for  his  own  use. 
But  this  is  only  half  the  internal  fittings  of  the  "  ship 
of  the  desert,"  as  the  Arabs  call  him.  In  the  desert  it 
is  often  as  difficult  to  find  food  as  water ;  and  nature 
has  equally  provided  for  this.  The  hump  you  see  rising 
upon  the  camel's  back  in  your  picture-books  is  his  safe- 
guard against  starvation.  It  is  a  huge  mass  of  fat.  I 
need  say  no  more.  You  will  remember  Mr.  Liebeg's 
pig,  which  lived  160  days  upon  its  own  bacon.  Without 
going  quite  such  lengths  as  that,  the  camel  can  keep  up 
his  fire  for  a  long  time  upon  the  fuel  which  the  blood 
obtains  from  this  blessed  hump.  Since  we  are  talking 
of  this  animal,  and  he  takes  a  remarkable  place  in  a 
history  of  nutrition,  I  ought  to  tell  you  that  camels  are 
classed  into  two  families  by  their  hump :  there  is  the 
camel,  properly  so  called,  which  has  two  humps,  and 
the  dromedary,  which  has  but  one.  This  latter  did  not 
require  such  a  supply  of  provisions  as  the  other,  for  he 
is  very  much  swifter  of  foot,  and  consequently  his  jour- 
neys are  more  speedily  performed. 

I  have  nothing  particular  to  say  to  you  about  the 
other  ruminants,  in  the  matter  of  their  organs  of  nutri- 
tion ;  but  I  will  not  quit  the  subject  without  reminding 
you  of  one  thing  which  concerns  nutrition,  not  theirs, 
however,  but  ours.  It  was  by  the  taming  of  the  domes- 
tic ruminants — that  unfailing  dinner-material  which  now 
follows  everywhere  at  the  heels  of  his  master — that  hu- 
man civilisation  began.  Before  that  event,  man,  driven 
to  depend  for  his  living  upon  the  hazards  of  the  chase, 
spent  his  whole  time  in  seeking  for  food,  and  had  none 
to  spare  for  the  pursuit  of  any  other  branch  of  industry. 


MAMMALIA.  285 

Far  as  we  may  ascend  in  the  history  of  ages  we  shall 
find  shepherd  races.  Beyond  them  there  is  no  history 
at  all,  nor  could  there  be.  The  first  leisure  hours  of 
man,  and,  consequently,  his  first  efforts  in  art  and  litera- 
ture, date  from  the  period  when  the  ruminant  animals, 
those  special  fabricators  of  nutritive  aliments,  were  gath- 
ered around  mankind,  and  worked  out  their  destiny  un- 
der the  shadow  of  his  tent,  by  his  direction,  and  for  his 
benefit.  But  all  this  is  so  distant  from  us  now,  that  it  is 
scarcely  worth  the  trouble  of  thinking  about.  The  hu- 
man race  is  somewhat  like  those  old  people  who  have 
lost  all  recollection  of  their  childhood  ;  and  young  peo- 
ple are  not  required  to  know  what  their  elders  have 
forgotten.  It  is  well,  however,  that  they  should  not  be 
quite  ignorant  on  the  subject.  When  you  hear  that  the 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  has 
taken  up  the  cause  of  some  barbarously-used  ox  or  sheep, 
do  not  turn  it  into  ridicule.  Those  humble  species  have 
supported  ours  from  the  first ;  and  you  should  recollect, 
now  and  then,  that  human  society  made  its  first  step 
forward  when  it  began  to  keep  flocks  and  herds. 


LETTER  XXXIII. 

MAMMALIA — continued. 

WE*  come  now  to  animals  less  familiar  to  you,  and 
none  of  which  inhabit  Europe.  We  shall  therefore  pass 
more  quickly  over  them. 

ORDER  9.    Marsupialid  (pouched). 

Marsupium  is  Latin  for  purse,  pouch,  or  pocket.  The 
marsupials  are  distinguished  from  other  animals  by  a 
pouch  which  the  mother  has  under  her  belly,  and  in 
which  the  little  ones  take  refuge  at  the  slightest  alarm. 
You  would  be  very  much  interested  with  their  whole 
story  ;  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  present  subject, 
which  we  should  soon  lose  sight  of  if  we  once  began  to 
wander  away.  This  order,  so  easily  distinguished  other- 
wise by  that  singular  pouch,  unfortunately  for  us,  offers 
nothing  new  for  observation.  It  includes  several  species, 
differing  entirely  from  one  another  on  the  subject  of  nu- 
trition, and  closely  resembling  some  already  described. 
Some  are  both  carnivorous  and  insectivorous,  and  are 
therefore  armed  with  powerful  canines,  and  with  molars 
like  those  of  the  hedgehog.  Others  are  herbivorous, 
like  hares,  and  have  almost  the  jaws  of  a  rodent.  Among 
the  former  we  have  the  opossum,  celebrated  by  Florian 
in  one  of  his  prettiest  fables.  The  opossum  inhabits 
South  America.  Charming  little  marsupials  are  to  be 
found  in  the  Molucca  Isles,  whence  come  the  nutmeg  and 
(286) 


MAMMALIA.  287 

the  clove  ;  these  are  very  like  our  squirrels,  and  live  as 
they  do,  in  trees,  hunting  after  fruit  and  insects.  But  the 
greatest  number  of  marsupials  belong  to  Australia,  the 
real  native  land  of  the  order.  They  form  by  far  the 
larger  portion  of  the  mammalia  with  which  that  country 
is  enriched ;  the  most  celebrated  amongst  them  being 
the  kangaroo  ;  an  animal  which  is  now  becoming  com- 
mon in  European  menageries,  and  which,  excepting  in 
the  matter  of  its  pouch,  is  nothing  but  a  magnified  rab- 
bit, as  tall  as  a  man,  and  with  a  tail  almost  as  long  as 
itself.  As  a  rabbit,  you  know  what  its  eating  apparatus 
must  be  ;  and  some  day.  no  doubt,  the  French  Acclima- 
tisation Society  will  enable  us  to  judge  of  its  flavor. 
It  is  a  kind  of  meat  very  likely  to  be  seen  on  our  din- 
ner-tables by-and-by ;  and,  as  you  have  plenty  of  time 
before  you,  probably  you  may  eat  of  it  before  you  die. 

ORDER  10.    Edentata  (toothless). 

These  come  more  directly  within  our  limits.  They 
are  classed  according  to  their  teeth  ;  yet  if  their  name- 
were  to  be  trusted,  they  ought  to  have  no  teeth  at 
all.  Whereas,  alas !  almost  all  of  them  have  some,  and 
I  am  heartily  ashamed  of  their  scientic  designation  ;  but 
how  can  we  help  it?  The  only  really  Edentata,  i.  e. 
toothless  animals,  amongst  them  are  the  ant-eaters,  who, 
considering  the  nature  of  their  food,  are  not  much  in 
want  of  teeth.  They  feed  among  the  ant-hills,  whence 
they  get  their  name ;  and  as  they  are  a  tolerable  size 
(from  two  to  three  feet  in  length),  it  would  really  have 
been  quite  a  hardship  upon  them  to  have  been  forced  to 
crunch  the  ants  one  by  one  at  every  meal.  To  get  on 
rapidly  they  catch  them  with  their  tongue  ;  but  what  a 
tongue  I  Imagine  a  kind  of  long  earthworm,  lodged  in 
a  snout  which  is  elongated  like  a  bird's  beak,  and  has  a 


288  MAMMALIA. 

very  small  opening  at  the  extremity.  The  ant-eater 
inserts  this  long,  string-like  tongue  into  the  crowded 
ranks  of  its  victims,  and,  as  its  surface  is  glutinous,  they 
stick  to  it  by  hundreds  at  a  time,  and  are  swallowed  at 
one  gulp  without  a  chance  of  escape.  This  tongue,  per- 
fectly unique  in  its  character,  stretches  out  in  its  mur- 
derous exertions  to  nearly  three  times  the  length  of  the 
animal's  long  head.  What  a  distance  there  seems  be- 
tween such  a  tongue  as  this  and  your  own  litle  door- 
keeper !  But  no  wonder :  we  have  now  reached  the 
confines  of  the  kingdom  of  Mammalia,  and  the  face  of 
nature  is  beginning  to  change. 

The  Armadillo,  for  instance,  which  comes  next  to  the 
ant-eater,  looks  far  more  like  the  tortoise  or  lizard  than 
its  noble  mammalian  brethren.  It  is  covered  with 
scales ;  and,  to  look  at  it,  you  would  say  it  was  a  reptile, 
in  spite  of  its  higher  internal  organization.  As  for 
teeth,  it  has  certainly  enough  of  them  to  give  the  lie  to 
its  name  of  edentata;  but  they  are  not  very  serviceable 
-ones.  They  are  called  molars,  however,  because  they 
are  situated  in  that  part  of  the  mouth  which  .is  always 
assigned  to  molars  ;  but  they  are  miserable  grindstones, 
very  unlike  any  of  which  we  have  hitherto  treated. 
They  are  all  of  them  flattened  cylinders,  with  no  enamel 
bars  to  strengthen  them ;  are  small  and  poor,  and  are 
placed  at  rather  wide  intervals  from  one  another.  The 
poor  armadillo  munches  with  these,  as  best  he  can,  slugs, 
tender  roots,  and  other  prey  of  the  same  sort,  with  which 
he  is  obliged  to  content  himself,  and  which  do  not  re- 
quire very  formidable  tools. 

The  most  questionable  member  of  this  class  is  the 
Unau,  or  Two-toed  Sloth.  It  only  wants  incisors  to  be 
as  toothless  as  ourselves  !  and  the  first  time  I  saw  it  I 
took  it  for  a  little  bear.  It  is  true  I  was  then  younger 


MAMMALIA.  289 

than  you  are  now  ;  for  the  bear,  who  is  one  of  our  nearest 
neighbors,  ought  not  to  have  been  confounded  with  the 
unhappy  being  before  us,  one  of  the  drudges  of  the  ani- 
mal creation  ;  though  M.  de  Blainville  (who  had  not  my 
excuse)  proposed  placing  it  still  nearer  to  us,  namely, 
amongst  the  Qaadrumana.  Observe  that  instead  of 
hands  it  has  at  the  end  of  its  fore-limbs  only  two  enor- 
mously curved  claws,  which  have  somewhat  the  appear- 
ance of  a  gigantic  fork  accidentally  twisted.  Accord- 
ingly its  illustrious  sponsor  offered  it  to  the  world  as  an 
irregular  quadrumane.  I  believe  so,  indeed !  This  qua- 
drumane  without  hands — this  edentate  whose  molars  are 
preceded  by  magnificent  canines — this  enigma  of  nature, 
created  for  the  confusion  and  despair  of  all  classifica- 
tion— does,  I  must  in  all  humility  confess,  completely 
upse^;'  the  rule  I  laid  down  so  stringently  when  speaking 
of  the  horse,  as  to  the  objects  for  which  canine  teeth 
were  framed.  The  canine  teeth  of  the  sloth  are  more 
developed  than  its  molars,  and  yet  I  cannot  tell  you 
what  they  are  there  for  at  all.  It  feeds  upon  the  leaves 
of  trees  ;  and  old  travellers  in  South  America,  where  it 
inhabits,  have  told  us  that,  when  it  has  once  hoisted 
itself  up  a  tree,  it  will  strip  it  to  its  last  leaf,  and  after- 
wards drop  to  tlie  ground  to  avoid  the  trouble  of  crawl- 
ing down.  This  was  what  first  obtained  for  it  the 
villanous  name  of  sloth,  a  title  which  is  certainly  justi- 
fied by  its  gait  when  on  the  ground  ;  for  it  is  so  ill-made 
that  it  cannot  stand  upright  on  its  legs,  but  moves  clum- 
sily forward  by  dragging  itself  on  its  elbows.  It  seems, 
however,  that  when  once  in  a  tree  it  is  a  different  crea- 
ture altogether,  and  can  scramble  lightly  from  branch 
to  branch.  Moreover,  if  its  claws  cannot  reasonably  be 
reckoned  as  hands,  they  are  at  all  events  excellent 
hooks  ;  and  when  it  is  springing  about  thus  in  the  forest, 
13 


290  MAMMALIA. 

suspended  to  the  branches  by  its  long  arms,  one  might 
be  tempted,  while  watching  it  from  below,  to  decide  in 
favor  of  M.  de  Blainville's  opinion.  I  saw  it  originally 
myself  in  a  cage. 

As  to  the  sloth's  relationship  to  the  armadillo,  this 
rests  upon  a  detail  which  bears  directly  upon  our  sub- 
ject. The  molars  in  both  animals  are  cylindrical  and 
smooth,  this  is  a  trifle,  but  what  would  you  have  ?  The  ani- 
mal had  to  be  classed  somehow ;  since  naturalists  have  not 
had  the  wit  to  make  detached  companies,  as  they  do  in 
regiments  of  soldiers. 

ORDER  11.     Amphibia  (two-lived). 

We  are  going  farther  and  farther  away.  Here  are 
animals  who  are  nearly  half  fishes  (dp^lg  double,  and 
f3io$  life).  The  Amphibia  have  two  lives  :  one  in  the 
water,  which  is  their  true  life,  and  where  they  are  in 
their  element ;  the  other  upon  land,  where  they  can  only 
crawl ;  for  their  paws,  which  are  but  half  developed,  are 
destined  to  perform  the  office  of  fins,  and  the  hinder  ones 
are  extended  flatly  behind  them,  and  act  like  a  fish's  tail. 
They  are  divided  into  two  families,  the  seal  and  the  wal- 
rus. The  first  feed  on  fish,  and  have  the  same  internal 
organization  as  the  Oarnivora,  as  well  as  the  same 
dental  conformation.  Some  species  have  even  exactly 
thirty-two  teeth,  as  we  have.  The  jaw  of  the  walrus  is 
the  least  regular,  and  the  incisors  are  generally  want- 
ing, especially  in  the  full-grown  animal ;  for  it  appears 
they  lose  them  very  young,  as  you  lost  your  milkteeth, 
only,  unluckily  for  the  walrus,  his  never  grow  again. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  has  two  canines  in  his  upper  jaw, 
which,  next  to  the  elephant's  tusks,  are  the  largest  we 
have  yet  met  with.  They  are  sometimes  as  much  as  two 
feet  long,  and  incline  downwards  with  a  curve,  like  the 


MAMMALIA.  291 

two  bars  of  a  pick-axe.  They  would  play  the  walrus  the 
same  trick  that  the  incisors  of  rodents  are  apt  to  do 
when  they  have  not  work  enough  to  wear  them  down  ; 
that  is,  stop  up  the  entrance  of  its  mouth,  were  it  not 
that  the  lower  jaw  is  contracted  in  front,  in  order  to  fit 
into  the  space  between  the  two  canines,  which  thus  form 
a  sort  of  passage  in  which  it  manoeuvres  freely.  As  you 
may  suppose,  the  walrus  cannot  insert  prey  of  any  great 
size  into  this  contracted  passage ;  but  that  is  no  mat- 
ter, as  he  lives  partly  on  seaweeds,  and  partly — indeed 
principally — on  shell-fish ;  his  molars  being  specially 
adapted  for  breaking  shells.  They  are  short  massive 
cylinders — the  upper  ones  fitting  into  the  lower  as  a 
pestle  into  a  mortar. 

After  the  walrus  comes  a  strange  animal  which  has 
been  ranked  among  Cetaceans  (we  shall  see  why  pres- 
ently), but  which  it  would  be  better  not  to  separate 
from  the  Amphibians,  since  an  Amphibian  order  has 
been  made,  for  it  crawls  from  time  to  time  upon  land  : 
this  is  the  Manatee,  or  Sea-cow.  It  comes  still  nearer  a 
fish  than  the  others.  Its  forelimbs  are  absolute  fins, 
with  mere  vestiges  of  nails  at  their  edges  ;  it  has  no 
hind  ones,  and  its  body,  which  is  quite  cylindrical,  ends 
in  a  fin  tail  in  the  shape  of  a  shovel.  The  sea-cow  feeds 
on  plants  and  herbage,  and  lives  at  the  mouths  of  great 
rivers,  going  up  them  occasionally  to  great  distances, 
their  banks  serving  it  for  pasture  ground.  In  some  re- 
spects it  is  half  brother  to  the  hippopotamus  and  the 
great  grass  eating  Pachydermata,  to  whom  it  comes  so 
near  in  internal  organization,  and  above  all  in  the  struc- 
ture of  its  molars,  that  M.  de  Blainville  seriously  pro- 
posed ranking  it  among  the  elephants,  though  as  an 
irregular  elephant,  as  you  may  suppose.  But  then  Cuvier 
had  even  placed  the  seal  among  the  Carnivora,  by  the 


292  MAMMALIA. 

side  of  the  cat,  whose  whiskers  it  possessed,  and  of  the 
dog,  whom  it  resembled  in  the  formation  of  its  head. 
A  naturalist's  office  is  sometimes  very  perplexing,  I 
assure  you  ;  and  as  we  are  touching  on  this  subject,  I 
cannot  resist  telling  you  that  the  sea-cow  laid  claim  to, 
on  so  many  sides,  had  by  right  a  free  admission  to  the 
celebrated  order  of  Primates,  although  it  looks  exactly 
like  a  large  barrel  elongated  at  the  two  ends.  It  suckles 
its  young  at  the  breast  like  man  and  the  monkey  ;  and  if 
Linnaeus  flinched  from  this  rather  too  absurd  parentage, 
old  navigators  were  less  scrupulous.  Observing  this 
creature  in  the  distance,  sporting  on  the  waves,  the 
upper  part  of  its  body  quite  out  of  the  sea,  the  sailors, 
whose  eye  is  not  of  the  most  refined,  and  who.  have  no 
objections  generally  to  the  marvellous,  imagined  they 
saw  a  new  species  of  human  beings  ;  and  hence  arose 
those  stories  of  mermaids  and  sirens  which  have  been 
told  from  the  days  of  Homer  downwards,  and  the  tradi- 
tions of  which  have  not  yet  quite  died  out  in  seaport 
towns.  To  have  been  passed  from  man  to  the  whale, 
touching  the  elephant .  on  the  road,  is  a  long  way  to  tra- 
vel, especially  when,  after  all,  one  is  only  a  huge  barrel 
of  amphibious  fat ;  and  you  may  judge  from  this  that  it 
is  not  always  an  easy  thing  to  classify  animals. 

ORDER  12.     Cetacea  (whale-kind). 

Cetaceans  are  whales  ;  and  if  I  had  been  consulted 
in  the  matter,  I  should  have  joined  this  order  and  the 
last  together,  under  whatever  name  was  thought  most 
appropriate.  The  passage  from  the  seal  to  the  whale 
through  the  walrus  and  the  sea-cow  is  an  easy  and  natu- 
ral one,  the  two  latter  being  obviously  the  connecting 
links  ;  and  in  spite  of  certain  diversities  of  food,  they 
form  in  reality  one  family-party,  as  do  the  marsupials. 


MAMMALIA.  293 

But  it  is  too  late  in  the  day  to  talk  of  this,  my  dear 
child,  and  you  and  I  cannot  pretend  to  alter  what  is 
taught  in  the  schools. 

But  you  are  astonished,  are  you  not  ?  to  hear  that  the 
whale  is  not  a  fish  :  and  no  wonder.  It  is  with  it,  how- 
ever, as  with  the  armadillo  ;  it  is  a  fish  with  a  higher 
organisation  inside.  The  interior  of  this  enormous  mass 
is  a  faithful  reproduction,  as  a  whole,  of  that  of  the 
shrew-mouse  ;  and  when  we  come  to  talk  of  fishes  you 
will  have  some  faint  idea  of  the  prodigious  distance 
which  this  places  betwen  the  whale  and  his  countrymen 
of  the  ocean. 

As  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the  chief  difference  is  in 
their  way  of  breathing.  The  cetaceans  breathe  like  our- 
selves, and  are  obliged  to  come  to  the  surface  of  the 
water  to  take  air  ;  while  fishes  have  a  special  apparatus, 
which  I  will  explain  to  you  presently,  which  enables  them 
to  breathe  in  the  water.  This  is  a  disadvantage  to  the 
cetacean  in  his  fish  life  ;  nevertheless,  of  all  the  mammals 
(as  may  easily  be  imagined)  he  is  the  one  who  can  remain 
longest  under  the  water.  With  us,  for  instance,  the  best 
divers  one  ever  heard  of,  those  who  go  to  the  bottom  of 
the  sea  after  the  pearl-oyster,  can  scarcely  stay  below 
longer  than  two  minutes  ;  and  even  during  that  short 
time  the  veins  of  the  head  become  so  overcharged  with 
the  blood,  which  cannot  return  to  the  lungs  owing  to  its 
forced  inactivity,  that  when  the  diver  comes  back  to  the 
surface  it  is  by  no  means  unusual  to  see  him  streaming 
with  blood  from  both  nose  and  ears.  The  cetaceans 
remain  under  water  for  half  an  hour  at  a  time  without 
seeming  to  suffer  in  the  least ;  and  Breschet,  a  clever 
French  naturalist,  has  given  a  very  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  this  wonderful  faculty.  In  dissecting  a  cetacean, 
he  discovered  all  along  the  vertebral  column  an  exten- 


294  MAMMALIA. 

sive  network  of  large  veins,  which  are  not  found  in 
other  mammals,  and  which  seemed  designed  to  serve  as 
a  refuge-place  for  the  blood  during  the  time  the  animal 
remains  submerged.  According  to  him,  this  network 
would  act  as  a  reservoir,  to  which  any  overplus  in  the 
head  or  important  organs  would  flow  through  vessels 
communicating  therewith,  and  which  might  swell  out  as 
it  pleased,  without  any  risk  to  the  inert  bed  of  fat  against 
which  it  lies.  From  thence  the  blood  rushes  to  the 
lungs,  as  soon  as  the  animal's  return  to  the  air  enables 
them  to  play  as  usual.  It  must  be  admitted,  at  the  same 
time,  that  all  this  involves  the  necessity  of  a  much  less 
active  life  than  that  of  land  mammals,  that  is  to  say,  a 
consumption  of  oxygen  much  smaller  in  proportion  than 
theirs  ;  for  were  you  to  be  furnished  down  your  back 
with  the  finest  network  reservoir  in  the  world  for  venous 
blood,  it  would  still  not  enable  you  to  remain  half  an 
hour  without  breathing. 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  in  the  digestive  appara- 
tus of  the  cetaceans  except  about  the  mouth,  which  is,  as 
you  know,  the  essentially  variable  point  among  ani- 
mals. To  begin  with,  the  cetacean  tongue  has  the  most 
original  appearance  possible.  Indeed,  it  is  not  a  tongue, 
but  a  large  carpet,  spread  over  the  floor  of  the  animal's 
mouth,  and  bears  not  the  faintest  trace  of  resemblance  to 
that  nimble  delicate  porter,  who  does  you  such  good  ser- 
vice. Imagine  a  thick  soft  lump  absolutely  crammed  with 
fat,  and  completely  immovable,  because  it  is  glued  down 
along  its  whole  length  to  the  bottom  of  the  mouth,  and 
you  will  have  a  good  idea  of  this  strange  tongue,  which 
in  the  whale,  the  largest  of  the  cetaceans,  attains  to  the 
length  of  twenty-five  feet  and  the  width  of  twelve,  and 
of  itself  alone  furnishes  the  whale-fishers  with  from  five 
to  six  tons  of  oil.  This  is  a  great  deal  farther  from  us 


MAMMALIA.  295 

than  even  the  long  string  which  serves  as  a  tongue  to 
the  ant-eater  ;  and  you  feel  at  once  that  we  are  getting 
among  strangers. 

With  respect  to  teeth,  I  have  now  a  melancholy  piece 
of  news  to  tell  you.  We  have  done  with  them  ;  we 
have  seen  the  last  of  incisors,  canines,  and  molars,  hence- 
forth you  will  hear  no  more  about  those  valuable  instru- 
ments. The  teeth  of  the  cetaceans,  with  whom  this  pain- 
ful falling-off  begins,  are  no  more  teeth  than  his  tongue 
is  a  tongue.  They  are  like  so  many  nails  set  in  a  row 
in  the  jaw,  and  can  only  be  of  use  in  retaining  prey,  not 
in  grinding  it ;  so  that  of  the  many  processes  your  bit 
of  bread  has  to  go  through  before  it  becomes  a  part  of 
yourself,  there  is  one  which  is  dispensed  with  here  alto- 
gether, namely,  mastication.  Cetaceans  swallow  their 
food  without  chewing  it. 

Besides,  they  have  not  got  a  whole  set  even  of  these 
unmasticating  teeth.  Dolphins  and  porpoises,  those 
faithful  companions  of  the  sailor,  around  whose  vessel 
they  come  playing  and  tumbling  in  the  seas  of  all  coun- 
tries, are  the  only  ones  who  have  them  in  both  jaws. 
And  these  are  the  small  fry  of  the  order  ;  they  do  not 
usually  exceed  six  or  ten  feet  in  length. 

The  Cachalot,  or  Spermaceti  Whale,  an  enormous 
cetacean,  which  rivals  the  true  whale  in  size,  and  whose 
head  alone  forms  nearly  the  half  of  its  body,  has  teeth 
in  the  lower  jaw  only.  This  lower  jaw,  whose  two  sides 
are  joined  together  for  half  their  length  (a  new  devia- 
tion, very  unlike  anything  we  have  found  before),  is  so 
little  proportioned  to  the  gigantic  head  which  contains 
it,  that  it  is  almost  lost  to  sight,  and  seems  like  a  small 
plank  slipped  under  a  great  square  block. 

Such  as  it  is,  however,  it  possesses  many  very  respect- 
able teeth,  of  which  some  weigh  as  much  as  two  pounds ; 


296  MAMMALIA. 

and  with  these  the  cachalot,  whose  ferocity  is  tremen- 
dous, tears  in  pieces  everything  that  comes  near  it,  some- 
times even  the  boats  of  the  fishermen  who  risk  their 
lives  in  the  dangerous  pursuit  of  capturing  them.  By  a 
singular  arrangement,  of  which  this  is  the  only  known 
instance,  there  is,  opposite  each  of  the  cachalot's  teeth, 
a  corresponding  cavity  in  the  upper  jaw,  into  which  they 
fit  closely,  turning  the  monster's  muzzle  into  the  most 
formidable  pair  of  pincers  to  be  found  in  the  animal 
kingdom.  Another  curiosity  in  the  order  is  the  tooth 
of  the  Narwhal,  a  modest  cetacean,  who  is  not  much 
more  than  twenty  feet  long  ! 

I  speak  of  the  tooth,  because  the  creature  has  com- 
monly but  one  ;  a  cylindrical-pointed  tooth,  spirally  fur- 
rowed, whose  length  varies  from  six  to  ten  feet,  and 
which  comes  straight  out  from  the  extreme  front  of  the 
upper  jaw,  like  a  soldier's  pike.  There  are  two  sockets 
at  this  extremity  of  the  jaw,  each  furnishe  J  with  a  tooth- 
germ  ;  but  as  a  general  rule  the  germ  on  the  left  side  is 
the  only  one  which  develops,  the  other  lying  asleep  in 
its  socket,  where  it  is  choked  up  and  never  appears. 
Behind  this  long  pike,  which,  like  the  tusk  of  the  ele- 
phant, attracts  to  itself  all  the  ivory  in  the  body,  lies  a 
completely  unfurnished  mouth  ;  so  that  the  owner  of  this 
magnificent  weapon,  invaluable  as  a  war-tool,  but  quite 
inapplicable  to  the  purpose  of  supporting  life,  is  obliged 
to  feed  on  small  fishes  and  mollusks.  We  have  not  yet 
spoken  about  these  latter,  but  if  you  have  ever  seen  slugs 
and  snails  you  will  know  what  a  mollusk  is. 

The  same  wretched  food  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  whale 
also,  that  giant  of  the  ocean,  whose  open  mouth  forms 
an  aperture  twenty  feet  in  extent.  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire, 
in  his  indefatigable  endeavors  to  trace  out  points  of  re- 
semblance connecting  together  animals  the  most  unlike 


MAMMALIA.  297 

in  outward  appearance,  discovered,  along  the  lower  jaw 
of  a  young  whale,  certain  traces  of  teeth,  indicating  a 
last  effprt  on  the  part  of  nature  to  carry  out  her  usual 
plan  in  furnishing  the  jaws  of  mammals  ;  but,  like  the 
right-hand  tooth  of  the  narwhal,  these  vain  attempts 
soon  disappear,  overgrown  and  lost  in  the  tissue  of  the 
bone,  so  that  the  whale  offers  us  a  true  type  of  an  eden- 
tate, classable  with  the  ant-eater,  if  one  dared,  and  some 
people  have  dared,  which  by  this  time  will  not  sur- 
prise you.  A  classifying  professor  is  utterly  merciless, 
whether  he  gets  hold  of  the  poor  beasts  by  the  mouth  or 
by  the  paw  :  they  may  protest  with  all  the  rest  of  their 
body  against  the  peg  on  which  they  are  hung  ;  so  much 
the  worse  for  them !  If  one  were  to  listen  to  what  they 
have  all  got  to  say,  it  would  be  impossible  to  classify 
even  one. 

To  return  to  the  whale.  As  a  compensation  for  the 
teeth  which  she  found  herself  unable  to  give  him,  nature 
has  manufactured  on  the  two  sides  of  his  upper  jaw  the 
most  extraordinary  apparatus  without  exception  to  be 
found  in  the  mammal  mouth.  You  know  what  is  called 
the  whalebone  used  in  stay-making,  &c.  The  name  is 
quite  correct ;  for  those  little  flexible  black  strips,  which 
support  the  figure  so  nicely,  began  life  in  wandering 
over  the  polar  or  Australasian  seas,  fastened  to  the  pal- 
ate of  some  monstrous  whale. 

On  the  two  sides  of  the  upper  jaw  the  membrane  which 
covers  the  palate  sends  out  rows  of  broad,  thin,  horny 
plates,  which  are  from  eight  to  ten  feet  long  (they  have 
sometimes  been  seen  twenty-five  feet)  in  the  centre  of 
each  side,  but  which  decrease  gradually  towards  the  ex- 
tremities. These  are  plates  of  whalebone  (sometimes 
called  whale's  whiskers),  and  the  industry  of  man  has 
turned  them  to  a  thousand  different  uses  ;  and  you  will 
13* 


298  MAMMALIA. 

open  your  eyes  in  astonishment  when  I  tell  you  that 
800  or  900  of  them  have  been  sometimes  counted  on  each 
side  of  one  mouth.  Think  of  the  number  of  stays  that 
could  be  furnished  from  the  whalebone  plates  of  one 
whale !  It  is  true,  they  were  not  exactly  designed  for 
this  purpose  originally.  At  the  tips  and  on  the  edges 
of  these  plates,  the  elastic  fibres  of  which  they  are  com- 
posed unravel  and  peel  off,  and  hang  down  from  the  lip 
like  tufts  of  horsehair.  The  Arctic  seas,  which  the  whale 
inhabits,  are,  like  other  seas,  full  of  innumerable  troops 
of  various  little  sea-animals,  and  it  is  these  which  are 
destined  to  the  honor  of  nourishing  this  gigantic  mass 
of  flesh.  When  the  colossus  wishes  to  take  a  meal,  he 
stretches  his  mouth  to  its  utmost  width,  and  the  salt 
water  rushing  in  as  into  a  gulf,  carries  with  it  the  im- 
prudent little  fry,  who  disappear  then  and  there  for  ever, 
being  retained  by  the  fringe-like  sieve  of  the  whalebone. 
But  as,  in  this  way  of  eating,  the  stomach  of  the  whale, 
however  large,  would  be  terribly  overgorged  with  water, 
he  is  furnished  with  another  apparatus  for  preventing 
the  inconvenience.  All  the  superfluous  water  is  rejected 
by  the  pharynx,  and  springs  up  in  spouts  of  fifteen  or 
twenty  feet  high,  through  the  nostrils,  i.e.  the  nasal  open- 
ings, sometimes  called  "  vents,"  sometimes  "blow-holes," 
which  are  pierced  exactly  at  the  top  of  the  head.  This 
is  a  peculiarity  common  to  all  cetaceans,  who  have  thence 
received  the  name  of  "  blowers/'  alluding  to  the  power- 
ful blast  which  is  necessary  to  send  those  majestic  col- 
umns of  water  into  the  air  ;  but  it  takes  a  much  milder 
form  with  the  lesser  cetaceans,  such  as  dolphins  and  por- 
poises. There  is  but  a  slight  jet  with  them  :  the  water 
escapes  comparatively  quite  quietly  from  the  nostril- 
vents,  trickling  away  down  the  animal's  sides. 
I  hope  you.  consider  that  I  have  told  you  something 


MAMMALIA.  299 

new  this  time,  my  dear  child,  and  that  our  machine  is 
beginning  to  change  its  appearance  very  materially.  I 
told  you  before  that  we  had  reached  the  outskirts  of  the 
mammal  kingdom.  When  we  got  to  the  armadillo  we 
were  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  reptiles,  and  here, 
one  step  more  would  take  us  to  the  fishes.  But  we  must 
first  consider  the  birds,  who  are  a  very  superior  set  of 
animals  to  either  of  the  latter  ;  and  we  have  accordingly 
an  order  of  mammals  (Monotremes)  which,  as  you  will 
now  find,  opens  the  road  on  that  side  also. 

There  are  but  two  sorts,  and  both  of  them  are  na- 
tives of  Australia,  which  is,  as  you  may  have  heard, 
the  land  of  the  wonderful  in  natural  history,  and  their 
existence  was  unknown  to  the  learned  men  of  Europe 
till  within  the  last  sixty  years.  The  most  extraordinary 
of  the  two  is  the  Ornithorhynchus,  or,  to  translate  the 
hard  Greek  word  into  English,  the  Duckbill.  Its  mouth 
is  a  true  duck's  bill,  a  downright  horny  beak,  and  its 
short  paws  sprawling  sideways  with  a  membrane  join- 
ing the  toes  together  below,  and  coming  a  good  deal  be- 
yond them  in  front,  seem  intermediate  between  the 
flippers  of  the  seal  and  the  webbed  feet  of  a  water-bird. 
The  first  naturalist  who  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
ornithorhynchus,  Blumenbach  the  German,  who  gave  it 
its  pretty  name,  did  not  think  it  was  able  to  suckle  its 
young,  so  much  did  it  differ  from  mammals  in  some  re- 
spects, though  looking  so  like  them  on  the  whole.  And 
presently  a  report  arose  in  the  learned  world  that  the 
new  animal  which  had  been  classed  at  all  risks  among 
mammals  (it  having  the  close  fur  and  almost  the  body 
of  the  otter),  a  report  arose,  I  say,  that  this  ornithorhyn- 
chus of  Blumenbach  laid  eggs  like  a  real  duck.  The 
uproar  in  the  Academies  was  tremendous.  As  early  as 
1829,  indeed,  a  learned  Englishman,  Sir  Everard  Home, 


300  MAMMALIA. 

had  sent  over  to  France  an  authenticated  drawing,  as 
he  said,  of  an  ornithorhynchian  egg,  to  the  delight  of 
the  hunters  after  analogies  among  animal  races  ;  while 
Cuvier  looked  sadly  askance  at  the  intruder,  whose  ar- 
rival threw  his  animal  outliDes  into  confusion,  there 
being  no  place  in  them  for  such  a  beast.  Happily  for  the 
poor  animal,  he  has  ended  by  almost  settling  the  matter 
for  himself.  The  ornithorhynchian  egg  has  never  turned 
up.  But  in  the  animal's  nest  have  been  found  baby 
ornithorhynchuses,  newly  born,  under  two  inches  long 
(the  full-grown  animal  being  more  than  a  foot  and  a 
half),  and  not  a  trace  of  eggshells  near.  Further  in- 
vestigations showed  that  the  mother  ornithorhynchus 
nursed  her  young  with  milk,  for  curdled  milk  was  found 
in  their  stomachs ;  so  the  Australian  phenomenon  has 
been  restored  triumphantly  to  the  Mammalian  order, 
whence  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire  had  excluded  both  it  and 
its  companion,  the  echidna,  a  sort  of  hedgehog,  provided 
like  the  ornithorhynchus  with  a  bird-like  bill,  only  more 
of  the  canary-bird  sort ;  and  like  it,  also,  approximating 
to  the  bird  tribe  by  other  details  which  do  not  belong 
to  our  subject.  And  so  the  matter  stands  at  present ; 
and  all  we  venture  to  say  is  that  classification  had  a 
very  lucky  escape. 

And  now,  my  dear  child,  that  I  have  made  you  ac- 
quainted in  detail  with  your  nearest  neighbors,  the  last 
of  whom,  nevertheless,  are  strangely  unlike  you  outside, 
however  they  may  resemble  you  within,  I  shall  take  the 
liberty  of  going  more  quickly  over  the  ground,  and  shall 
point  out  in  the  mass  only  the  more  important  changes 
which  lead  from  one  class  of  animals  to  another.  I 
should  be  found  fault  with  if  I  tried  to  make  you  too 
learned,  and  you  yourself  might  be  tempted  to  tell  me, 
to  my  sorrow,  that  you  had  heard  about  enough. 


LETTER   XXXIY. 

AYES.  (Birds.) 

TELL  me,  my  dear  child,  when  you  have  seen  birds 
taking  their  flight  into  the  air,  and  going  boldly  to  their 
object,  without  a  thought  of  all  the  barriers,  ditches, 
rivers,  and  mountains,  which  hinder  man  at  every  step 
in  his  travels,  did  it  never  strike  you  to  wish  for  their 
wings,  and  imagine  how  you  would  fly  off  if  you  had 
them  ?  If  you  ever  dreamt  this  dream,  do  not  apologise 
for  it ;  it  is  one  as  old  as  the  world.  '  Oh  that  I  had 
wings  like  a  dove !'  cried  the  Prophet,  nearly  3,000 
years  ago  ;  and  the  dialogue  of  the  swallow  and  the 
prisoner,  so  often  sung  by  poets,  has  been  repeated  in 
prose  behind  all  the  prison-bars  on  the  globe  since 
prisons  were  first  invented. 

Now  you  will  not  think  it  kind  on  my  part,  but  I  must 
undeceive  you  about  this  fancy,  as  you  will  be  undeceived 
some  day  about  many  others.  The  wings  of  a  dove  or 
swallow  would  be  of  no  use  to  you  if  you  had  them, 
any  more  than  the  formidable  swords  of  the  middle  ages 
would  be  to  our  modern  gentlemen,  were  any  one  to  put 
such  into  their  hands.  We  are  not  adapted  for  them, 
nor  they  for  us. 

You  saw,  some  time  ago,  what  an  amount  of  muscular 
exertion  was  required  for  running — what  a  violent  flow 
of  blood,  what  hurried  play  of  the  lungs.  Now  in  fly- 
ing it  is  still  worse  ;  for  the  earth,  at  any  rate,  holds  us 

(301) 


302  AVES. 

up  quite  naturally,  whereas  the  air  will  not  hold  up  the 
bird  unless  it  is  beaten  vigorously  and  unremittingly  by 
an  untiring  wing.  If  we  men,  constructed  as  we  are, 
had  to  do  such  work,  we  should  be  out  of  breath  at  once  ; 
the  heart  would  cry  out  immediately  for  quarter,  and 
the  diaphragm  turn  red  with  anger.  And  only  just 
imagine  in  what  a  critical  position  a  poor  wretch 
launched  into  the  air  on  the  wings  of  a  swallow  would 
find  himself  when,  at  the  end  of  five  minutes,  his  ser- 
vants should  refuse  point-blank  to  go  on  working  at  a 
height  of  500  feet  above  the  ground ! 

But  a  bird  has  not  these  internal  rebellions  to  fear. 
In  the  first  place,  it  has  no  diaphragm  ;  so  here  is  another 
friend  to  whom  we  must  say  good-bye.  We  shall  not 
meet  with  him  again  anywhere.  The  journey  we  are 
taking  together,  my  dear,  is  somewhat  like  the  journey 
of  life.  One  sets  off,  surrounded  by  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances, but  whoever  travels  on  to  the  end  is  apt  to 
find  himself  alone  at  last ;  this  is  what  is  happening  to 
the  digestive  tube,  which  we  shall  see  losing  all  its  ac- 
cessories, one  by  one,  as  we  gradually  advance  in  oui 
study.  Even  now  here  is  one  essential  fundamental 
difference  in  the  internal  machinery.  The  body  has  only 
one  compartment  instead  of  two  ;  and  the  lungs,  masters 
of  the  whole  space,  extend  freely  to  its  utmost  depths. 
When  a  fowl  is  cut  up  at  table,  look  along  the  body,  and 
you  will  find  lodged  in  the  cavity  of  the  ribs,  a  long, 
blackish,  and  spongy  mass :  this  is  the  lungs.  There  is 
not,  therefore,  the  same  danger  of  a  bird's  getting  out 
of  breath  as  with  us  ;  that  delicate  board  which  is 
found  in  our  bellows  is  wanting  in  his.  His  is  set  in 
action  solely  by  the  to-and-fro  movement  of  the  ribs, 
which  is  produced  by  muscular  exertions,  which  are 
greatly  increased  during  the  action  'of  the  wings.  From 


AVES.  »  303 

which  it  follows,  that  the  rapidity  of  flight  itself  regu- 
lates the  arrival  of  air,  and  consequently  the  expendi- 
ture of  strength,  or,  if  you  like  better,  the  activity  of  the 
fire,  since  the  energy  of  the  muscles  depends,  as  we  have 
seen,  upon  the  quantity  of  oxygen  that  feeds  the  inter- 
nal stove. 

This  is  not  all.  These  elongated  lungs  are  still  not 
sufficient  to  furnish  the  blood  with  all  the  oxygen  de- 
manded by  this  excessive  labor  of  flight.  They  are 
pierced  with  holes,  through  which  issue  pipes  which 
carry  the  air  all  over  the  body.  You  know  what  is 
said  of  spendthrifts  ? — that  they  burn  the  candle  at  both 
ends.  It  is  so  with  the  blood  of  birds.  That  fillip 
which  in  our  case  it  receives  in  the  lungs,  and  which 
sends  it  back  full  of  vigor  into  the  arteries,  is  repeated 
in  the  bird  at  the  other  end  of  the  arteries  as  well. 
The  capillaries,  those  delicate  vessels  at  the  end  of  the 
arteries,  plunge  from  all  sides  into  little  reservoirs  of 
air — lungs,  therefore — where  the  blood  renews  its  pro- 
vision of  oxygen,  and  relights  its  half-extinguished  fire, 
so  that  it  sends  the  combustion  afresh  into  the  muscles 
on  its  return  back  to  the  heart,  and  sets  them  going  a 
second  time. 

The  natural  consequence  of  this  prodigality  of  com- 
bustion is,  that  there  must  be,  in  proportion,  much  more 
oxygen  in  birds  than  in  us  ;  and  that  of  all  animals  a 
bird  is  the  one  most  quickly  poisoned  by  his  own  carbonic 
acid  when  the  air  is  not  renewed  around  him.  There- 
fore, let  me  beg  you  never  to  think  of  putting  a  poor 
little  bird  under  a  wine-glass,  as  a  child  of  my  acquaint- 
ance once  did,  that  she  might  examine  her  little  friend 
more  closely.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  he  would  con- 
sume all  the  oxygen  inside  his  prison,  and  you  would 
soon  see  him  fall  upon  his  side  and  die. 


304          *  AVES. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  temperature  of  these  flying 
machines,  which  consume  so  much  oxygen,  is  very  much 
higher  than  ours.  It  rises  to  41°,  42°  (centigrade),  and 
sometimes  to  44°,  7°  higher  than  with  us.  If  ever  you 
have  taken  hold  of  a  little  bird,  you  will  have  remarked 
how  warm  it  makes  your  hand :  this  is  quite  natural, 
since  there  is  always  a  double  fire  going  on  within  him, 
to  meet  the  extraordinary  expenditure  of  strength  that 
is  required  of  him  whenever  he  takes  wing.  Besides,  do 
but  look  at  the  poor  little  creature  when  you  have  im- 
prisoned it  in  a  cage !  How  it  goes  up !  How  it  comes 
down !  How  it  hops  from  one  perch  to  another,  with  a 
quick  sudden  movement,  like  that  of  a  spring  when  it 
unbends.  There  is  no  apparent  cause  for  this  state  of 
continual  agitation  ;  and  yet  there  is  a  cause,  and  only 
too  serious  a  one.  Its  fire  is  not  slackened  because  you 
have  put  it  into  a  cage,  and  its  muscles,  lashed  furiously 
on  by  the  double-oxygenized  blood,  drive  it  hap-hazard 
into  a  thousand  movements,  in  which  it  expends,  as  best 
it  can,  a  superabundance  of  power,  which  no  longer 
finds  natural  employment.  Little  children,  who  are  the 
real  singing-birds  of  our  homes,  and  whose  blood  also 
drives  much  more  energetically  along  than  ours — little 
children,  I  say — often  fare  no  better  than  caged  birds 
in  those  larger  cages  we  call  schools ;  and  schoolmas- 
ters and  governesses  would  scold  rather  less  if  they 
thought  rather  more  about  this.  It  is  right,  I  do  not 
deny  it,  that  the  rebellious  young  rogues  should  be 
taught  in  good  time  not  to  abandon  themselves,  like 
wild  birds,  to  the  mere  animal  impulses  of  the  blood  ; 
but,  in  dealing  with  them,  one  must  also  make  allow- 
ances, as  they  say,  for  the  fire  within,  and  know  how  to 
open  the  cage  now  and  then.  It  is  not  for  you,  how- 
ever, that  I  say  this,  young  lady  :  you  are  no  longer  a 


AYES.  305 

little  child  ;  but  it  may  happen  that  you  may  have  some 
to  tak,e  care  of  some  day.  Believe  me,  then,  you  must  not 
expect  too  much  wisdom  from  them,  and  you  must  allow 
them  to  change  their  perch  every  now  and  then.  It 
is  a  law  of  our  Almighty  Father  that  little  children, 
and  little  birds,  should  not  stay  too  long  in  one  place. 

The  mechanism  of  the  circulation  is  here  the- same  as 
with  us,  and  does  not  offer  any  important  peculiarity. 
Only  the  left  ventricle  of  the  heart  has  walls  of  extreme 
thickness,  which  enable  it  to  launch  the  blood  into  the 
members  with  greater  vigor  and  rapidity ;  and  the 
blood  itself,  although  it  is  composed  of  precisely  the  same 
materials  as  that  of  the  mammals,  differs  from  it  never- 
theless as  regards  the  globules.  In  the  first  place,  they 
are  more  numerous  ;  secondly,  they  are  larger ;  and 
finally,  instead  of  being  round  like  a  plate,  they  are 
drawn  out  ovally,  and  are  almost  shaped  like  those  long 
dishes  on  which  fish  is  usually  served.  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  give  you  the  reason  of  their  size  and  form. 
This  is  hidden  from  us  in  the  same  mystery  which  en- 
velopes all  the  microscopic  population  of  the  blood  ; 
but  is  it  not  a  curious  thing,  this  strange  persistency 
of  form  in  the  globules  of  all  animals  of  one  class? 
In  all  birds  they  are  oval ;  in  all  mammals  they  are 
round.  In  all  ?  Nay,  I  am  wrong.  As  if  the  better 
to  hide  from  us  the  key  to  this  riddle,  nature  has 
amused  herself  by  making  an  exception.  Camels  and 
llamas,  I  forgot  to  tell  you,  have  also  globules  in  the 
form  of  long  dishes,  like  the  hen  and  the  chaffinch. 
Find  out  why,  if  you  can.  As  to  the  reason  of  the 
number,  it  is  a  very  simple  one.  Since  the  energy  of 
the  blood  resides  in  the  globules,  it  follows  that  the  most 
energetic  blood  will  contain  the  largest  amount  of  glob- 
ules. Looking  at  you,  for  instance,  little  monkey,  run- 


306  AYES. 

ning  and  jumping  about  the  garden,  I  would  lay  a  wager, 
without  counting  first,  that  there  are,  in  one  drop  of 
your  blood,  some  millions  more  globules  than  in  one  of 
mine. 

Let  us  now  go  on  to  the  digestion,  with  which,  proper- 
ly, we  ought  to  have  begun  ;  but  I  preferred  pointing 
out  to  you,  first,  the  particular  character  which  is  the 
chief  mark  of  distinction  in  the  organization  of  the  bird. 

'  When  hens  grow  teeth/  says  a  shrewd  proverb, 
meaning  of  course,  never.  Birds  have  no  teeth,  and  in 
this  respect  there  is  no  variety  among  them.  All,  from 
the  first  to  the  last,  have  uniformly  the  same  tool  to 
eat  with — the  bill,  that  is- — which  is,  in  all  cases,  com- 
posed of  the  same  elements,  two  jawbones  elongated  to  a 
point,  and  clothed  in  a  horny  armour,  which  makes 
their  edges  sharp  and  cutting.  At  the  same  time  were 
we  to  review  the  birds  in  detail,  as  we  have  done  the 
mammals,  you  would  see  that  there  are  almost  more  mod- 
ifications to  be  observed  in  this  one  single  instrument 
than  in  our  thirty-two  teeth.  All  birds  have  a  beak, 
but  each  has  his  own,  organized  expressly  with  reference 
to  the  kind  of  food  needed  by  its  owner.  The  eagle's 
beak,  which  mangles  living  prey,  is  pointed,  bent,  and 
hard  as  steel ;  the  bill  of  the  duck,  which  laps  up  water 
from  ponds  and  puddles,  in  order  to  get  worms  and  half- 
decomposed  refuse  out  of  it,  is  soft,  and  flattened  like  a 
shovel.  The  woodpecker's,  which  has  to  pierce  the. 
trunks  of  trees,  is  like  a  pickaxe  ;  that  of  the  humming- 
bird, which  has  to  suck  up  the  juice  of  flowers  from  the 
bottom  of  their  corollas,  is  slender  as  a  needle.  The 
swallow  feeds  on  flies,  which  it  snaps  up  on  the  wing, 
and  has  a  soft  bill,  which  opens  like  a  little  oven.  The 
stork  picks  up  reptiles  in  the  mud  of  the  marshes  ;  its 
beak  is  straight-pointed,  cutting  as  a  knife,  and  resem- 


AVES.  307 

bles  a  long  pair  of  pincers.  The  sparrow  feeds  especial- 
ly on  hard  grains,  difficult  to  break ;  accordingly  its 
beak  is  stumpy,  short,  and  thick,  and  is  arched  on  the 
upper  side  for  still  further  solidity.  But  I  should  never 
end  if  I  began  to  enumerate  all  the  thousand  varieties 
in  the  bills  of  birds.  Each  variety,  too,  corresponds 
with  some  peculiar  sort  of  life,  and  consequently  with  a 
general  conformation  (easily  ascertained)  of  the  animal 
in  which  it  appears.  Give  a  naturalist  the  bill  of  a  bird 
— only  its  bill  remember — and  he  will  tell  you  half  its 
history  without  fear  of  being  mistaken. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  not  deceive  ourselves  as 
to  the  real  value  of  this  complaisant  bill.  Let  it  trans- 
form itself  as  it  pleases  into  all  manner  of  forms  for  the 
better  fulfilment  of  its  task,  it  makes,  at  the  best,  but  a 
very  poor  instrument  for  mastication  ;  nay,  to  say  the 
truth,  it  breaks,  cuts,  and  tears,  but  it  never  masticates 
at  all.  Thus  the  bird's  mouthful  is  far  from  undergoing 
as  perfect  a  preparation  as  ours  does.  It  is  no  sooner 
taken  in  than  it  is  swallowed,  and  the  salivary  glands, 
which  are  still  to  be  found  under  the  tongue,  seem  only  to 
be  there  as  a  matter  of  form  ;  what  little  saliva  they  pro- 
duce is  thick  and  sticky,  and  has  none  of  the  qualities 
necessary  for  making  that  liquid  paste  which  our  tongue 
sweeps  up  from  every  corner  of  the  mouth.  Besides,  it 
must  be  owned  that  a  bird's  tongue  would  be  a  very, 
awkward  implement  in  such  a  task.  Open  a  hen's  bill 
and  you  will  see  therein  a  very  inferior  sort  of  porter. 
It  is  merely  a  dry  hard  lance,  as  it  were,  armed  with 
prickles  at  the  point,  as  ill-qualified  for  tasting  as  for 
sweeping.  So  the  hen  does  not  waste  her  time  in  finding 
out  the  flavor  of  what  is  thrown  to  her.  She  picks  up 
and  swallows  over  and  over  again,  without  appearing 
to  experience  any  other  pleasure  than  that  of  satisfying 


308  AVES. 

her  appetite.  Birds  of  prey,  it  is  true,  have  rather  more 
convenient  tongues,  capable,  moreover,  of  tasting  up  to 
a  certain  point ;  and  the  parrot,  who  is  a  complete  epi- 
cure, and  chews  his  food  philosophically,  has  a  charming 
little  black  one,  thick,  fleshy,  and  susceptible — a  true 
porter,  in  fact — who  enables  Polly  thoroughly  to  enjoy 
her  breakfast.  But  certain  birds  who  live  on  insects 
surpass  even  the  hen  in  the  dryness  and  hardness  of 
their  tongues.  That  of  the  woodpecker,  especially,  is  a 
model  of  the  kind,  and  deserves  $,  few  words  more  than 
the  others.  Picture  to  yourselves  a  long  pin,  terminated 
by  an  iron  point  with  barbs  like  those  of  fish-hooks.  An 
ingenious  mechanism  enables  the  bird  to  dart  it  out 
with  the  rapidity  of  lightning,  far  beyond  his  bill,  upon 
the  insects  to  which  he  gives  chase.  The  point  pierces 
them,  and  the  hooks  retain  them,  without  any  need  of  as- 
sistance from  the  bill.  I  have  just  told  you  that  this 
bill  pierces  the  bark  of  trees  ;  but  it  only  plays  the  part 
of  gamekeepers  on  grand  sporting  occasions,  who  beat 
the  bushes  to  make  the  game  rise.  The  woodpecker's  bill 
routs  up  the  insects  by  destroying  their  shelter  ;  but  the 
real  sportsman  is  the  tongue.  Good-bye  to  any  notion 
of  a  cosy  little  chat  in  such  a  porter's  lodge  as  that ! 
What  could  a  harpoon  have  to  say  for  itself  ? 

Do  not,  however,  let  this  miserable  en  trance -hall 
alarm  you,  at  the  same  time,  for  the  fate  of  the  mouth- 
ful thus  presented  half-dressed  to  the  oesophagus.  You 
will  find  it  only  so  much  the  better  treated  within.  In 
the  first  place,  the  oesophagus,  when  half-way  down  to 
the  stomach,  swells  out  suddenly  and  forms  a  pocket, 
which  is  generally  particularly  well  developed  in  birds 
who  feed  on  grain  ;  this  is  called  the  crop  in  English,  in 
"French  jabot ;  whence  comes  the  application  of  that  word 
to  those  full  shirt-frills  which  have  sometimes  been  the 


AVES.  309 

fashion.  It  is  the  pigeon's  crop  that  gives  him  the 
rounded  chest  over  which  he  bridles  so  prettily.  The 
crop  is  a  receptacle  where  the  food  makes  a  halt :  it  is 
something  between  the  pouch  of  the  monkey  and  the 
paunch  of  the  ox ;  a  preparatory  stomach,  which  does 
not,  it  is  true,  send  back  the  grain  to  the  bill,  for  the 
bill  could  do  it  no  good,  but  in  which  that  grain  lies 
until  there  is  room  for  it  further  on. 

From  thence  it  resumes  its  journey  ;  but,  before  reach- 
ing the  true  stomach,  it  passes  through  a  second  enlarge- 
ment of  the  oesophagus,  whose  walls  are  pitted  with 
numberless  little  cavities,  from  which  pour  over  it  the 
juices  destined  to  supply  the  place  of  the  saliva  that  was 
wanting  above. 

It  reaches  its  destination  at  last,  but  still  hard,  and 
generally  whole.  No  matter,  however.  The  stomach 
which  receives  it,  and  which  is  called  the  gizzard,  is 
quite  a  different  sort  of  thing  from  a  useless  membrane, 
thin  and  delicate  like  ours.  It  is  a  thick  muscle  of 
enormous  power,  lined  inside  with  a  kind  of  horny  skin, 
so  tough  that  nothing  can  break  through  it.  You  may 
form  some  idea  of  the  prodigious  strength  of  this  organ, 
when  I  tell  you  that  turkey-fowls  have  been  made  to  swal- 
low hollow  balls  of  glass,  so  thick  as  not  to  break  when 
dropped  to  the  ground,  and  that  at  the  end  of  a  few  days 
they  have  been  found  reduced  almost  to  powder  in  the 
uninjured  stomach.  No  fear  of  indigestion  with  such  an 
apparatus  as  that.  Though  the  grain  may  not  have  been 
masticated  in  the  bill,  what  does  it  signify  ?  There  is 
a  power  here,  as  you  see,  quite  equal  to  carrying  the 
whole  work  through.  Thanks,  indeed,  to  the  invaluable 
horn  which  lines  it,  fowls  which  have  no  teeth  of  their 
own  can  safely  present  themselves  with  as  many  and  as 
hard  ones  as  they  please.  They  swallow  small  peb- 


310  AVES. 

bles,  which  rub  against  the  grain,  during  the  con- 
tractions of  the  gizzard,  and  act  just  as  effectually  as  if 
they  were  fixed  in  the  jawbone.  Well,  this  terrible  giz- 
zard performs  its  crushing  work  with  such  energy,  that 
not  only  the  grain  but  the  pebbles  themselves  are  ground 
down  there,  and  end  by  being  pounded  into  fine  sand. 
When  you  rear  fowls,  do  not  forget,  if  you  keep  them 
shut  up,  to  put  within  their  reach  a  store  of  small 
pebbles,  so  that  they  may  have  teeth  to  run  to  in  time 
of  need. 

You  remember  the  pylorus — the  porter  down  below, 
who  keeps  the  door  of  egress  from  our  stomach  ?  He  is 
as  badly  provided  for  here  as  his  fellow-workmen  up 
above  ;  worse  in  fact.  It  is  a  gaping  hole,  and  we  can- 
not expect  a  very  strict  supervision  from  it.  Birds  who 
feed  on  fruits  profit  by  this  fact  to  carry  vegetables  from 
one  country  to  another.  With  such  an  easy  opening, 
seeds  have  a  good  many  chances  of  passing  from  the 
stomach  unaltered  •  and  then  they  drop  from  the  clouds, 
as  is  supposed,  hap-hazard,  and  germinate  afterwards, 
when  circumstances  prove  favorable,  to  grow  up  before 
the  astonished  eyes  of  the  natives  into  plants  of  which 
they  have  never  even  heard.  The  French  Acclimatiza- 
tion Society,  which  I  spoke  of  lately,  and  which,  though 
so  modern,  has  correspondents  all  over  the  globe,  is  at 
this  moment  laboring  to  effect  an  exchange  between  all 
countries  of  the  natural  productions  of  their  soil.  But 
here  you  see  that  nature  had  thought  of  this  before,  and 
established  her  acclimatization  society  long  ago. 

To  complete  the  internal  work  of  digestion,  so  feebly 
begun  in  the  bill,  an  extremely  large  liver  pours  torrents 
of  bile  into  the  duodenum,  and  the  manufacture  of  chyle 
proceeds  with  that  wild  rapidity  which  characterizes  all 
the  living  actions  of  birds.  But  speaking  of  this  liver, 


AVES.  311 

I  think  I  ought  to  give  you  an  account  of  a  celebrated 
dish,  considered  a  great  dainty  by  epicures,  called  pates 
de  foies  gras— fat  liver  patties,  to  translate  it  into  its 
meaning.  Yery  likely  you  will  not  care  to  eat  them 
after  hearing  my  story  ;  but  that  will  be  no  great  loss 
to  you,  for  it  is  a  very  indigestible  sort  of  food,  and  not 
at  all  good  for  children. 

You  remember  my  telling  you  about  Englishmen  go- 
ing to  India  and  coming  back  with  a  liver-complaint, 
from  having  eaten  and  drunk  more  than  the  climate  al- 
lowed ?  By  an  imitation  of  this  process,  human  inge- 
nuity— occasionally  so  cruel — has  created  the  pates  de 
foies  gras,  the  glory  of  Strasburg.  I  have  been  in  the 
country,  and  can  tell  you  how  it  is  managed.  They  shut 
a  goose  up  in  a  square  box,  where  there  is  just  room  for 
his  body.  They  open  his  bill  at  feeding-time,  and  cram 
down  with  the  finger  as  much  food  as  can  be  got  in. 
This  is  throttling  rather  than  feeding  it.  The  poor 
beast,  who  can  use  no  resistance,  since  it  cannot  move, 
and  who  is  kept  in  the  dark  to  prevent  excitement ;  the 
poor  beast  is  quite  unable  to  burn  all  the  mass  of  com- 
bustibles with  which  the  blood  soon  finds  itself  loaded. 
This  carries  them  to  the  liver  to  be  turned  into  bile  ; 
but  the  liver  is  not  equal  to  the  work,  becomes  loaded 
in  its  turn  by  unemployed  materials,  and  grows  and 
grows,  till  at  last,  having  filled  up  all  the  space  around 
it,  it  stops  the  play  of  the  heart  and  lungs.  When  the 
animal  is  nearly  suffocated  they  kill  it ;  and  this  is  how 
we  come  to  have  pates  de  foies  gras  to  eat !  If  they 
give  us  a  fit  of  indigestion  afterwards,  it  is  a  vengeance 
we  richly  deserve.  At  Toulouse,  where  the  same  trade 
is  carried  on  on  a  large  scale,  they  used  formerly  to  go 
even  beyond  this.  They  fastened  the  goose  by  the  feet 


312  AVES. 

before  the  fire-place,  after  having  put  out  its  eyes.  The 
imitation  of  the  Englishman's  proceeding  was  still  more 
perfect  here,  for  the  fire  acted  the  part  of  the  Indian  sun 
to  perfection.  I  do  not  know  that  part  of  the  country 
well  enough  to  tell  you  whether  they  have  quite  given 
up  this  piece  of  wicked  ingenuity  ;  all  I  can  say  is,  I  de- 
voutly hope  so. 

The  intestine  of  birds  is  much  shorter  than  that  of 
mammals.  Here  everything  is  done  at  full  gallop,  and 
the  chyle  has  not  to  go  far  before  it  is  absorbed.  I  have 
before  me  a  book,  in  which  I  am  told  that  the  wagtails 
eaten  in  France  can  be  fattened  in  twenty-four  hours, 
if  you  only  know  how  to  set  about  it,  and  these  birds 
are  not  rare  ;  they  belong  to  the  same  family  as  the  red- 
breasts, the  tomtits,  and  the  nightingale.  Thrushes  and 
wheatears  (ortolans)  require,  for  the  same  purpose, 
four  or  five  days  in  the  same  country,  left  to  them- 
selves to  roam  about,  when  the  vine  keeps  open  table 
for  them. 

This  incredible  quickness,  not  only  in  digesting,  but, 
what  is  much  more,  in  transforming  food  into  fresh  living 
material  (assimilating  it,  as  it  is  called),  has  often  a  fatal 
result  for  the  bird.  He  is  prohibited  from  fasting  ;  his 
life  is  a  fire  of  straw,  which  must  be  replenished  un- 
ceasingly, or  it  will  die  out  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 
Our  own  little  birds — children — eat  oftener  than  grown- 
up people,  and  if  by  any  accident  they  are  kept  waiting 
awhile,  they  soon  cry  out  with  hunger.  You  know  this, 
do  you  not  ?  Well,  then,  if  any  one  should  give  you  a 
bird  to 'keep  in  a  cage,  remember  that  you  have  under- 
taken a  great  responsibility,  and  that  it  will  not  do  to 
be  careless  with  him.  To  neglect  feeding  him  for  one 
day  is  to  run  the  risk  of  finding  him  starved  to  death 


AVES.  313 

next  morning.  With  this  warning,  I  will  conclude  my 
chapter  on  birds.  I  hope  I  have  not  spoken  in  vain  in 
behalf  of  those  poor  little  captive  songsters,  whose 
fragile  lives  are  at  the  mercy  of  their  young  masters 
and  mistresses. 


LETTER    XXXY. 

• 
BEPTILIA.   (Reptiles.) 

PASSING  from  birds  to  reptiles  is  like  falling  from  a 
torrent  into  still  water.  Life  drags  on  as  sluggishly 
with  the  second  as  it  dashes  furiously  forward  with  the 
first. 

I  spoke  to  you  just  now  about  a  fire  of  straw :  now  we 
have  a  fire  such  as  Frenchwomen  make  in  their  chauffe- 
rettes,  or  foot-stoves.  A  handful  of  charcoal-dust,  and  a 
few  live  embers  between  two  layers  of  ashes,  is  enough 
for  the  whole  day  •  which  is  economical,  is  it  not  ?  but 
then  it  throws  out  only  just  warmth  enough  to  keep  one's 
feet  comfortable.  And  so  it  is  with  reptiles.  They  live 
at  very  small  expense.  If  you  feed  them  once  a  month 
they  will  not  complain,  for  so  slow  a  fire  does  not  often 
need  replenishing  with  combustibles.  It  is  even  said 
that  the  experiment  has  been  carried  so  far  with  tortoises 
that  they  have  been  made  to  fast  for  more  than  a  year, 
and  still  the  charcoal  fire  kept  up  its  languid  pace.  Of 
course,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  nearly  so  much 
oxygen  consumed  at  once  upon  such  a  diet  as  this. 
Where  a  bird  would  perish  twenty  times  over  in  five 
minutes  for  want  of  oxygen,  a  lizard  can  remain  whole 
hours  with  impunity.  Moreover,  the  animal  heat  of  rep- 
tiles is  in  proportion  to  their  expenditure  of  it.  Grace- 
ful as  is  the  snake  (that  living  jewel  so  often  copied  by 
bracelet-makers),  you  feel  on  touching  it  an  instinctive 
(314) 


BEPTILIA.  315 

horror,  caused  by  the  thrill  of  cold  it  produces.  All  the 
animals  we  have  considered  hitherto  have  warm  blood, 
and  bear  within  themselves  the  source  of  their  heat,  which 
is  pretty  nearly  always  the  same.  But  reptiles  are  cold- 
blooded, and  heat  comes  to  them  chiefly  from  with- 
out. 

If,  at  the  end  of  a  cold  winter,  we  go  to  some  favor- 
able corner  to  catch  the  first  rays  of  spring  sunshine,  we 
feel  ourselves  almost  re-born,  as  it  were,  as  if  a  new  life 
had  come  into  us  with  the  sunbeams.  Look  at  the  little 
lizard  you  see  frisking  on  the  white  stones  of  the  wall ; 
upon  him  decidedly  the  sun  is  darting  actual  life  from 
its  rays.  While  the  cold  lasted  he  staid  squatting  in 
his  hiding-place — not  asleep,  but  annihilated — congealed, 
so  to  speak,  like  water  caught  by  the  frost ;  no  longer 
digesting,  and  hardly  breathing,  he  had  ceased  to  live 
in  reality :  and  it  is  no  imaginary  regeneration  which 
the  return  of  warmth  brings  to  him.  Like  those  helpless 
people  who  have  not  the  power  to  carve  out  their  own 
destinies,  reptiles  have  within  them  only  an  insufficient 
source  of  animation ;  their  life  is  at  the  mercy  of  the 
sun,  and  is  high  or  low,  according  as  that  rises  or  sets 
in  the  heavens.  At  Martinique,  where  at  noonday  it 
darts  its  devouring  rays  perpendicularly  upon  the  cane- 
fields,  and  every  one  flies  into  the  shade  to  escape  its 
scorching  heat,  the  rattlesnake  traverses  the  country, 
monarch  of  all  he  surveys  ;  he  strikes  rapidly  with  a 
vigorous  tail  upon  the  calcined  ground  ;  and  woe  then 
to  any  one  who  receives  his  bite !  All  the  fire  of  the 
atmosphere  has  passed  into  his  frame.  Now  go  to  the 
Zoological  Gardens,  and  see  him  there  :  he  crawls  lan- 
guidly under  the  coverings  that  shelter  him  ;  if  by 
chance  he  bites  any  one,  it  is  with  an  idle  tooth  that  no 
longer  knows  how  to  kill ;  his  life  was  left  behind  with 


316  REPTILIA. 

the  sun  of  the  tropics,  and  it  is  little  more  than  a  corpse 
that  you  are  looking  at. 

And  so  among  ourselves,  my  dear  child :  we  meet 
with  people  whose  whole  power  comes  from  without, 
who  are  brilliant  and  haughty  in  the  sunshine  of  good 
fortune,  but  crest-fallen,  cowardly,  and  cringing  in  the 
cold  days  of  adversity.  Nevertheless,  they  are  consti- 
tuted originally  like  other  people  :  they  are  neither 
greater  fools  as  a  general  rule,  nor  less  gifted  than  their 
neighbors ;  where  they  fail  is  in  the  heart,  but  that  is 
enough  to  spoil  everything.  And  so  with  reptiles  :  the 
heart  is  their  weak  point  also.  Like  us,  they  have  lungs 
into  which  the  air  pours  without  any  difficulty,  and  a 
heart  to  send  the  blood  to  them ;  so  it  seems  at  first 
sight  as  if  there  could  be  nothing  to  prevent  their  resist- 
ing the  changes  of  external  temperature  just  as  well  as 
ourselves.  There  is  only  one  small  trifle  wanting,  and 
that  is  a  partition  in  the  middle  of  the  heart ;  but  this 
one  defect  is  enough  to  disorder  the  whole  machinery. 

You  know  that,  with  us,  the  heart  is  divided  into  two 
compartments  :  the  right  ventricle,  which  receives  the 
venous. blood  from  the  organs  and  sends  it  to  the  lungs  ; 
the  left  ventricle,  which  receives  it  (now  become  arterial) 
from  the  lungs  and  returns  it  to  the  organs.  Hence  the 
double  system  of  veins  and  arteries,  the  one  going  from 
the  heart  to  the  lungs,  the  other  from  the  heart  to  the 
organs.  All  this  is  found  the  same  in  reptiles  :  except 
that  the  partition,  which  separates  our  two  ventricles 
from  each  other,  does  not  exist  in  them  ;  and  the  heart 
has  only  one  common  room,  in  which,  therefore,  arterial 
and  venous  blood  become  mixed  together.  It  follows 
from  this  that,  at  each  contraction  of  the  heart,  it  is  a 
mixture  of  arterial  and  venous  blood  which  is  sent  in  the 
two  opposite  directions  at  the  same  time,  and  that  the 


REPTILIA.  317 

organs  receive  some  which  has  been  used  before,  while 
the  lungs  have  some  returned  to  them  which  has  been 
regenerated  already.  Now,  on  the  one  hand,  this  mixed 
blood  can  only  keep  up  an  imperfect  combustion  in  the 
body  (like  the  live  embers  between  two  layers  of  ashes 
that  we  spoke  of  lately),  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  air 
in  the  lungs  can  only  act  upon  a  part  of  the  blood  it 
meets  with  there,  the  rest  having  already  undergone  the 
regenerating  process.  And  this  accounts  for  both  the" 
feeble  animal  heat  and  the  small  consumption  of  oxygen 
in  reptiles. 

Added  to  which  the  lungs  of  a  reptile  are  coarsely 
constructed,  and  composed  of  cells  enormous  in  compari- 
son with  ours,  so  that  the  blood  does  not  find  nearly  as 
many  little  chambers  to  rush  into  for  a  taste  of  air  as 
with  us.  Moreover,  you  must  understand  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  diaphragm  here :  the  lungs  float  loosely 
in  the  form  of  elongated  bags  in  the  one  only  cavity  of 
the  body,  and  the  slight  movement  of  the  ribs  does  not 
allow  them  to  dilate  sufficiently  to  take  in  much  air  at  a 
time. 

All  these  things,  taken  together,  make  the  reptile  a 
very  poor  stove,  and  render  him  incapable  of  any  pro- 
longed exertion.  The  serpent  darts  like  an  arrow  upon 
his  prey  ;  but  he  could  not  pursue  it  for  half  a  mile 
without  stopping,  not  even  over  the  burning  soil  of  the 
equator.  The  lizard  is  very  nimble,  is  it  not  ?  and  the 
quickness  of  its  movements  rather  reminds  one  of  the 
agility  of  a  bird.  But  watch  it,  and  you  will  see  it  only 
moves  in  jerks,  and  keeps  stopping  every  minute  ;  it 
cannot  escape  you  if  there  is  no  hole  near  into  which 
it  can  disappear.  In  France  there  is  a  large  green  liz- 
ard that  runs  among  the  vine  trees.  If  you  pursue  him 
he  is  off  like  lightning  for  a  second  ;  then  he  stops  sud- 


318  EEPTILIA. 

denly  short.  You  return  to  the  charge,  and  he  starts 
afresh,  but  only  to  stop  again.  At  the  fourth  or  fifth 
attack  he  is  quite  out  of  breath  ;  you  poke  him  with  the 
stick  with  which  you  have  been  hunting  him,  but  in  vain  ; 
there  he  lies  motionless,  in  spite  of  his  alarm.  A  few 
steps  have  brought  him  to  the  end  of  his  powers,  like  a 
man  whose  heart  is  diseased  and  who  cannot  go  far. 
This,  however,  is  a  peculiarity  common  to  all  reptiles. 
Each  of  the  three  orders  of  which  this  third  class  of  Ver- 
tebrata  is  composed  has  its  own  particular  history  be- 
sides. You  must  excuse  my  mentioning  the  barbarous 
names  that  have  been  given  them,  and  allow  me  to  call 
them  tortoises,  lizards,  and  serpents,  like  other  people. 
The  hard  names  mean  no  more  than  these  ;  but  they  are 
Greek,  which  is  always  more  imposing. 

The  slowness  of  the  tortoise  has  passed  into  a  proverb, 
which  is  not  to  be  wondered  at ;  for  they  cannot  inhale 
the  air,  because  their  ribs  (which  are  a  reptile's  only 
resource  for  breathing)  are  condemned  to  absolute  im- 
mobility. The  carapace,  or  shell,  which  the  tortoise  car- 
ries on  his  back,  and  under  which  it  retreats  upon  the 
least  alarm,  as  under  a  shield,  is  really  formed  of  its 
ribs,  each  of  which  has  widened  itself  so  as  to  join  on  to 
its  neighbor,  like  the  boards  of  an  inlaid  floor,  which 
run  one  into  another.  Of  course  there  is  no  question  of 
moving  up  and  down  with  such  ribs,  and  the  poor  bel- 
lows cannot  work  at  all.  How  does  the  tortoise  get  out 
of  this  difficulty  then,  you  will  ask  ?  I  answer,  it  swal- 
lows air,  as  we  should  swallow  a  glass  of  water.  You 
see  its  mouth  open  and  then  shut  again,  thereby  taking 
in  an  actual  mouthful  of  air,  which  the  sides  of  the  mouth, 
by  contracting  themselves,  send  straight  to  the  lungs. 
These,  which  are  very  large,  get  filled  in  this  way  by 
degrees,  and,  when  they  are  quite  inflated,  they  expel  the 


roffiTiB 

REPTILIA.    /V  319 

. 

overplus  by  collapsing,  like  an  over-stretclied  spring. 
You  may  imagine  that  this  does  not  produce  a  very  ac- 
tive respiration,  and  that  a  tortoise  would  be  puzzled  to 
run  at  even  a  moderate  trot.  To  be  sure,  when  he  has 
once  filled  his  great  lungs  with  air,  he  has  enough  for  a 
long  time.  Most  tortoises  are  aquatic,  and,  as  divers, 
leave  the  cetaceans  far  behind.  Mery,  an  obscure  French 
naturalist  of  the  days  of  the  Empire,  pretended  that  he 
had  kept  in  his  house,/br  a  month,  some  tortoises,  whose 
breathing  he  had  completely  stopped.  Only  imagine 
from  this  how  far  their  life  must  be  below  ours,  although 
it  is  the  result  of  similar  actions,  performed  by  organs 
which  after  all  are  copies  (imperfect  ones,  it  is  true)  of 
our  own. 

Some  tortoises  feed  on  vegetable  substances,  and  some 
upon  fish  or  small  soft-bodied  animals.  Like  birds,  they 
mash  their  food  with  difficulty,  by  means  of  a  real  bill. 
Their  jawbones  are  generally  arched  forward  toward  the 
front,  and  are  furnished  with  sharp  horny  plates,  in  which 
a  fairly-marked  denticulation  or  notching  may  sometimes 
be  traced,  as  in  the  bills  of  birds  of  prey.  Indeed  there 
is  one,  the  caretta,  whose  hooked  and  notched  beak  so 
completely  recalls  the  warlike  bill  of  a  hawk,  that  it  is 
usually  known  by  the  name  of  the  ".Hawk's-bill  Turtle." 
You  ought  to  know  about  this  tortoise,  for  it  is  the  one 
which  furnishes  tortoise-shell,  that  nice  material  which 
is  so  smooth  to  the  touch,  so  pretty  to  look  at,  and  so 
very  fragile,  that  it  seems  only  fit  for  the  use  of  ladies' 
hands.  I  could  hardly  speak  of  tortoises  without  saying 
something  of  this  one,  out  of  whose  back  was  carved  the 
handle  of  your  own  pretty  little  penknife. 

Behind  this  bill  of  the  hawk's-bill  there  is  a  tongue, 
but  of  the  character  of  a  whale's  tongue,  and  it  is  fast- 
ened underneath  to  the  bottom  of  the  mouth.  At  the 


320  REPTILIA. 

base  of  it  there  is  a  sort  of  fleshy  pad  or  cushion,  which 
serves  instead  of  a  soft  palate,  that  being  another  detail 
which  is  about  to  disappear  from  our  history.  "We  are 
now  really  entering  upon  the  simplification  of  the  diges- 
tive tube,  which  will,  I  forewarn  you,  end  by  being 
nothing  more  than  a  perfectly  straight  pipe,  without 
any  appendages  whatever.  In  tortoises  the  intestine  is 
still  tolerably  long,  and  is  doubled  up  backwards  and 
forwards  many  times  in  the  abdomen  ;  but  it  is  already 
beginning  to  lose  that  variety  of  form  which  its  differ- 
ent parts  assumed  in  the  higher  animals.  The  large 
intestine  can  no  longer  be  clearly  distinguished  from  the 
smaller  one,  nor  this  from  the  stomach,  which  itself  seems 
to  be  a  continuation  of  the  oesophagus,  without  any  very 
distinct  boundary  line  between  them.  The  porter,  who 
with  us  keeps  the  door  of  the  stomach,  does  his  duty  here 
so  badly,  that  there  are  certain  kinds  of  tortoises  whose 
oesophagus  is  covered  with  spines,  the  points  inclined 
backward,  to  prevent  the  food  from  rising  up  into  the 
mouth  whilst  the  oesophagus  is  driving  it  down  by  its 
contractions. 

In  the  gray  lizards  of  our  walls  we  find  teeth  again, 
but  very  different  from  any  that  we  have  hitherto  seen. 
In  the  first  place,  they  are  not  content  with  their  usual 
place  on  the  edge  of  the  jaws,  but  encroach  upon  the 
surface  of  the  palate,  where  they  stretch  out  in  close 
lines.  Besides,  they  are  even  still  less  like  teeth  than  the 
great  nails  in  the  jaws  of  the  cetaceans.  They  are  little 
ivory  prongs,  with  the  points  turned  inwards,  analogous 
to  the  thorns  of  the  oesophagus  in  the  tortoise,  and  serve 
the  lizard  solely  to  retain  and  bruise  his  prey.  He  lives 
on  insects,  especially  flies,  which  he  seizes  on  the  wing 
with  the  greatest  skill,  hastily  catching  and  engulphing 
them  in  his  open  jaw  ;  they  pierce  themselves  on  the  lit- 


REPTILIA.  321 

tie  prongs,  and  are  swallowed  promiscuously.  The 
tongue  of  the  lizard  has  also  a  curious  peculiarity,  which 
is  shared  by  that  of  the  serpent :  it  is  divided  at  the  end 
into  two  threads,  which  dart  in  and  out  of  its  mouth, 
and  by  means  of  which  it  laps,  like  a  dog,  the  few  drops 
of  water  it  requires  to  satisfy  its  thirst.  I  have  seen 
lizards  which  had  been  tamed  by  children  greedily  suck- 
ing up  the  saliva  from  their  lips  by  drawing  across  them 
those  little  forked  tongues  of  theirs,  which,  after  all,  are 
very  soft,  and  perfectly  inoffensive. 

The  tongue  of  the  chameleon,  another  species  of  lizard, 
is  still  more  curious.  You  must  know  that  the  chame- 
leon is  a  lumbering  lazy  animal,  who  feeds  on  flies  and 
other  swift  insects,  and  who  would,  therefore,  be  con- 
stantly liable  to  go  without  his  dinner  but  that  his  tongue 
serves  him  for  a  hunting  weapon,  like  those  of  the  wood- 
pecker and  the  ant-eater.  When  at  rest,  it  is  an  oval 
spongy  mass,  lying  comfortably  in  the  mouth,  with  noth- 
ing formidable  in  its  appearance  ;  but  let  the  prey  come 
frisking  round  the  chameleon,  as  if  despising  so  helpless 
an  enemy,  and  this  great  soft  tongue  is  transformed  into 
an  active  dart.  It  shoots  forth  like  an  arrow,  and  will 
sometimes  seize  the  rash  intruder  at  half  a  foot's  dis- 
tance, transferring  it  with  equal  rapidity  to  the  motion- 
less mouth.  The  blow  is  so  soon  struck,  that  it  is  very 
difficult  to  see  how  it  all  happens.  Some  -  say  that  the 
chameleon  curves  the  tip  of  his  tongue  by  a  sudden  ef- 
fort, and  then  catches  his  flies  with  it,  just  as  you  would 
catch  them  with  your  hand.  Others  maintain  (and  this 
is  the  general  opinion)  that  the  tongue  of  the  chameleon 
is  terminated  by  a  sort  of  sticky  cushion,  on  which  the 
flies  are  caught,  like  birds  with  birdlime.  This  singular 
dart  is  always  out-jerked  with  such  force  that,  if  it 
strikes  against  a  glass  (the  experiment  has  been  tried 
14* 


322  EEPTILIA. 

with  chameleons  in  captivity),  it  makes  a  sound  as  loud 
as  that  of  a  pea  from  a  pea-shooter  ;  so  you  may  judge 
if  it  is  not  strong  enough  to  stun  a  fly.  Besides  this, 
too,  the  chameleon  (who  is  by-the-by,  a  hideous  little 
beast)  has  given  endless  trouble  to  naturalists  on  another 
and  very  different  point.  It  is  he  who  is  so  celebrated 
for  his  faculty  of  changing  color  when  any  emotion  agi- 
tates him ;  and  ever  since  the  days  of  Aristotle,  who 
lived  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  people  have 
been  trying  to  explain  this,  without  any  one  being  able 
to  flatter  himself  that  he  has  found  out  the  exact  answer 
to  the  riddle. 

But  there  is  a  lizard  more  interesting  still,  and  that  is 
the  crocodile.  He  stands  alone  among  reptiles.  His 
heart  has  two  ventricles,  and  you  would  think  that  he 
ought  to  be  included  in  the  class  of  warm-blooded  ani- 
mals. But,  no.  The  separation  of  the  two  kinds  of 
blood  takes  place  in  the  heart,  it  is  true,  and  it  is  really 
true  arterial  blood  which  the  aorta  carries  away  from 
the  left  ventricle.  But  the  right  ventricle  has  two  doors 
of  exit.  One  communicates  with  the  lungs,  the  other 
with  the  aorta  ;  and  the  latter  has  hardly  performed  its 
distribution  in  the  upper  part  of  the  body  when  it  meets, 
as  it  descends,  with  a  treacherous  tube  bringing  to  it  a 
current  of  venous  blood.  In  this  way  only  half  the 
blood  that  comes  from  the  veins  passes  on  to  be  regen- 
erated by  contact  with  the  air,  and  all  the  hinder  part 
of  the  body  receives  nothing  but  the  mixed  blood  com- 
mon to  reptiles,  while  the  head  and  fore  members  enjoy 
the  privilege  of  the  superior  orders.  After  this  go  and 
lay  down  your  laws  of  classification !  Nature,  while 
maintaining  amongst  all  animals  the  same  principle  of  life 
— the  regeneration  of  the  blood  by  oxygen — has  in  their 
construction  followed  many  systems  leading  to  the  same 


KEPTILIA.  323 

result  by  different  combinations,  and  which  seem  to  per- 
mit the  establishment  of  essential  distinctions  among 
them.  Here  is  an  animal  who,  if  I  may  so  express  my- 
self, is  climbing  up  from  one  system  to  the  other,  and 
you  would  have  to  cut  him  in  two  before  you  could 
classify  him  properly,  since  his  fore-quarters  have  risen 
to  the  warm-blooded  animals,  while  his  hind  ones  are 
left  behind  among  the  cold-blooded  reptiles ! 

But  there  is  something  which  even  outdoes  this. 

On  dry  land  the  crocodile  is  timid,  faltering,  a  bad 
walker,  incapable  of  regular  combat,  and  a  man  can 
manage  him  with  a  stick.  One  feels  that  he  is  betrayed 
by  the  hinder  half  of  his  body,  through  which  circulates 
the  only  half-oxygenized  blood.  But  when  once  he  has 
plunged  into  the  water  his  whole  behavior  suddenly 
alters ;  he  is  a  ferocious  being,  high-mettled,  indomit- 
able, a  savage  enemy,  redoubling  his  exertions,  as  if  the 
entire  mass  of  his  blood  had  suddenly  become  arterial. 
Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire,  who  followed  Bonaparte  as  a  scien- 
tific explorer  when  he  set  out  for  the  conquest  of  Egypt, 
the  country  of  crocodiles,  was  deeply  struck  by  study- 
ing on  the  spot  this  double  life,  which  seems  in  a  way 
to  maintain  two  beings  in  the  same  body.  He  after- 
wards gave  an  extremely  curious  explanation  of  it  in 
his  work  on  the  crocodiles  of  Egypt.  Here  it  is  ;  but  I 
forewarn  you  that  you  will  not  understand  it : 

"  The  crocodile,  when  it  is  under  water,  receives  by 
two  canals  into  the  cavity  of  the  abdomen,  a  consider- 
able quantity  of  water,  which  the  animal  can  renew  at 
will." 

You  are  not  much  the  wiser,  are  you  ?  But  wait  a 
moment.  We  are  soon  coming  to  the  fishes,  and  you 
will  then  see  what  an  unlimited  scope  nature  has  allowed 


324  REPTILIA. 

herself  here.    Not  satisfied  with  two  systems  in  one 
animal,  she  appears  to  have  got  hold  of  three. 

If  we  continue  the  examination  of  this  privileged 
reptile,  we  shall  find  many  other  infractions  of  the  usual 
rules  of  his  class.  His  tongue,  Certainly,  is  fastened  to 
his  mouth  like  that  of  the  tortoise,  so  much  so  that  the 
ancient  Egyptians  told  the  Greeks  he  had  not  got  one  ; 
but  his  set  of  teeth  clearly  approach  those  of  the  lower 
mammals.  You  have  probably  heard  a  great  deal  of 
the  strength  of  the  crocodile's  formidable  teeth.  Trav- 
ellers have  given  them  this  reputation  ;  but  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  that  now.  They  stand  in  battle 
array,  in  a  single  line,  along  the  whole  length  of  the 
jaws,  into  which  they  are  sunk  with  genuine  fangs, 
whilst  the  prongs  of  our  little  lizard  are  merely  fastened 
to  the  surface  of  the  bones  which  support  them.  Indeed, 
in  one  way,  the  crocodile  is  even  better  provided  than 
the  mammals.  He  possesses  under  each  tooth  one  or 
two  germs,  the  life  of  which  lasts  as  long  as  that  of  the 
animal,  and  which  are  always  there  ready  to  replace 
the  previous  one  should  it  chance  to  fall  out.  There  are 
many  ladies,  and  (not  to  be  rude)  gentlemen  as  well, 
who  would,  I  am  sure,  give  a  great  deal  to  have  as 
many  teeth  at  their  service.  Indeed,  they  may  possibly 
think  Dame  Nature  very  unjust  to  have  selected  this 
great  villanous  beast  rather  than  us  as  the  object  of  a 
gift  which  they  would  have  been  so  well  able  to  appre- 
ciate. But  we  must  not  blame  nature  too  quickly  :  she 
had  her  reasons.  We,  during  our  infancy,  have  teeth  in 
reserve.  Now,  a  reptile  may  be  considered  as  an  imper- 
fect rough  draft  of  a  mammal ;  and  the  crocodile  gives 
one  thoroughly  the  idea  of  a  mammal  half-finished  and 
fixed  for  life  in  a  state  of  childhood.  I  am  sorry  that  I 


EEPTILIA.  325 

cannot  enter  into  full  details,  that  you  might  see  how 
far  the  idea  is  a  just  one.  Moreover,  in  his  character 
of  a  perpetual  child,  he  is  always  growing  bigger  all 
his  life  long,  and  never  seems  able  to  die  but  by  accident, 
hardly  ever,  I  may  really  say,  from  old  age.  By  speci- 
mens kept  in  captivity,  it  has  been  ascertained  that  their 
growth  is  very  slow.  Well,  imagine  their  being  only 
from  seven  to  eight  inches  long  when  they  come  out  of 
the  shell,  and  that  full-grown  crocodiles  have  been  found 
thirty  feet  in  length,  and  calculate  accordingly.  You 
will  not  account  for  it  under  a  century  ;  and  I  should 
like  to  know  what  would  become  of  this  venerable  child 
of  more  than  a  hundred  years  old  if  kind  Mother  Na- 
ture had  not  left  him  our  system  of  milk-teeth  to  the 
end? 

A  curious  peculiarity  of  these  persistent  teeth  is,  that 
they  are  hollow  inside,  so  much  so,  that  the  bowls  of 
tobacco-pipes  are  said  to  be  made  from  them  in  Europe. 
I  mention  the  fact,  although  of  no  great  interest  to  you, 
for  the  benefit  of  any  pipe-merchants  who  have  not  yet 
thought  of  sending  for  such  things  to  Cairo. 

But  let  us  return  to  the  efforts  perceptible  in  the 
organization  of  the  crocodile  to  raise  itself  to  a  higher 
level.  The  soft  palate,  as  we  called  it  (Letter  VII.),  is 
wanting  in  other  reptiles;  but  here  there  is  one  which  com- 
pletely closes  the  entrance  of  the  windpipe  (the  larynx). 
I  announced,  too,  the  disappearance  of  the  diaphragm  ; 
and  we  bewailed  together  the  loss  of  that  servant  of 
the  good  old  times,  whose  touching  history  you  must, 
I  am  sure,  remember.  But  I  reckoned  without  this 
wretched  crocodile,  who  seems  determined  to  give  the 
lie  to  all  we  have  been  saying.  He  has  a  diaphragm, 
and  one  which  acts  well  enough  in  the  main,  although 
it  is  pierced  right  through  the  middle,  as  if  it  were  ra- 


326  BEPTILIA. 

ther  ashamed  of  being  there,'  and  wished  to  make  up  for 
dividing  the  body  into  two  compartments,  against  all 
proper  reptile  regulations,  by  opening  a  door  of  commu- 
nication between  them.  What  shall  I  tell  you  besides  ? 
The  lungs,  not  to  be  behind  the  rest  of  this,  aristocratic 
reptile's  organization,  are  hollowed  into  cells  much  more 
complicated  than  those  of  his  fellows.  You  find  here 
no  end  of  nooks  and  corners,  which  multiply  opportu- 
nities of  contact  between  the  air  and  the  blood,  and  so 
give  the  crocodile  almost  the  respiration  of  the  mam- 
mals, as  he  has  already  got  pretty  nearly  their  system 
of  circulation. 

With  serpents,  again,  we  fall  very  low.  When  we  were 
speaking  of  the  tortoises  I  told  you  that,  in  proportion 
as  we  come  down  in  the  scale,  the  digestive  tube  has  a 
tendency  to  get  rid  of  its  accessories,  and  to  assume  the 
appearance  of  a  perfectly  straight  tube.  If  any  one 
were  to  cut  open  a  serpent  before  you,  you  would  see 
this  final  condition  almost  reached  already.  In  the  first 
place,  the  soft  palate  is  entirely  suppressed,  and  the 
mouth  extends  straight  into  the  O3sophagus,  whose  tube 
seems  to  run  through  the  whole  length  of  the  body  with- 
out interruption,  with  just  four  or  five  doublings  towards 
the  base,  in  that  part  which  represents  the  intestines. 
An  imperceptible  swelling  indicates  the  place  where  the 
real  stomach  lies  within  ;  hut  in  another  sense  one  may 
call  the  oesophagus,  and  I  might  almost  add  the  mouth 
itself,  its  stomach.  You  shall  see  how. 

The  jaws  of  serpents  are  even  in  a  more  unfinished 
state  than  those  of  other  reptiles.  Nature  has  not  taken 
the  time  to  weld  the  different  parts  of  them  together ; 
but  these  begin  by  not  being  very  firmly  joined,  remem- 
ber, in  young  mammals.  The  bones  of  the  head,  which 
support  the  jaws,  are  themselves  movable,  and  can  be 


REPTILIA.  32 

detached  from  the  skull  if  necessary,  so  as  to  allow  the 
throat  to  open  extraordinarily  wide  ;  thus  it  is  not  un- 
common to  see  a  serpent  swallow  animals  much  larger 
than  itself.  You  will  be  horrified  when  I  tell  you  that 
the  anaconda,  one  of  the  giants  of  the  family,  swallows 
large  quadrupeds  at  a  single  mouthful.  What  are  our 
mouthfuls  in  comparison  with  his  ?  however,  it  must  be 
confessed,  that  his  often  take  several  days  to  go  down. 
When  the  animal  has  rolled  up  his  prey  in  his  terrible 
folds,  he  pounds  and  kneads  it  till  it  is  reduced  to  a  kind 
of  long  roll,  which  he  moistens  with  a  copious  slaver  to 
make  it  slip  down  more  easily.  Then,  attacking  it  at 
one  end,  he  fastens  this  very  expansive  jaw  upon  it,  and 
the  gigantic  mouthful  slowly  begins  its  journey  ;  what 
was  left  outside  the  mouth,  advancing  little  by  little,  in 
proportion  as  the  digestion  reduces  what  has  entered  to 
pulp,  and  sends  it  farther  down.  This  is  on  great  occa- 
sions ;  but  in  the  case  of  more  modest  prey — a  rabbit, 
for  instance — the  mouthful  goes  in  whole  at  one  gulp 
and  remains  stationary,  partly  in  the  oesophagus,  partly 
in  the  stomach,  while  the  powerful  juices  distilled  by  the 
walls  of  the  latter  are  dissolving  it. 

You  can  see  that  a  soft  palate  would  have  been  quite 
useless  here,  and  that  the  serpent  has  not  much  need  of 
teeth  to  chew  his  food.  Accordingly,  his  are  nothing 
but  simple  prongs,  like  those  of  the  lizard,  and,  like  his, 
they  extend  over  the  palate,  the  more  effectually  to  cut 
off  the  return  of  the  swallowed  masses  of  food.  About 
a  hundred  and  twenty  have  been  counted  in  the  throat 
of  the  boa-constrictor  ;  but  their  number  varies  consid- 
erably in  the  different  species.  They  are  not  organs  of 
the  highest  order,  and  nature  is  not  very  particular 
about  the  quantity. 

There  is  only  one  tooth  among  serpents  of  which  she 


328  REPTILIA. 

takes  any  particular  care,  and  that  is  the  venomous  tooth 
which  she  has  bestowed  on  certain  species,  and  which 
serves  them  for  striking  down,  as  it  were,  the  animals 
on  which  they  feed.  Let  us  study  it  in  the  rattlesnake, 
the  most  celebrated  of  this  odious  race.  On  each  side 
of  the  upper  jaw  you  may  see,  isolated  from  the  others, 
and  exceeding  them  all  in  length,  a  very  sharp  fang 
pierced  through  by  a  tiny  canal,  which  opens  into  a 
gland  placed  at  the  root  of  the  tooth.  The  bone  which 
supports  this  little  apparatus  is  very  flexible,  and  when 
at  rest,  the  fang,  falling  back,  hides  itself  in  a  fold  of 
the  gum.  When  the  animal  wishes  to  bite,  it  springs 
up  again,  and  the  gland,  compressed  by  the  action  of 
biting,  sends  into  the  little  canal  a  jet  of  poison,  which 
runs  through  it  into  the  wound..  As  far  as  can  be  ascer- 
tained, this  poison  paralyses  the  victim  and  disorders 
the  blood,  which  at  onces  loses  its  power,  and  no  longer 
acts  upon  the  organs  as  before  ;  still  it  is  only  injurious 
when  it  has  been  carried  by  the  current  of  circulation 
into  the  mass  of  the  blood  :  if  swallowed,  it  has  no  effect 
whatever  on  the  stomach.  Now  do  not  look  at  me  with 
such  incredulous  eyes,  as  if  it  were  quite  impossible  any 
one  should  think  of  swallowing  such  a  thing.  You  have 
no  idea  what  a  scientific  man  is  capable  of  when  he 
comes  to  close  quarters  with  nature,  for  the  purpose  of 
extracting  one  of  her  secrets.  He  has  his  own  fields  of 
battle,  where  very  often  as  much  courage  is  displayed 
as  on  any  other. 

These  two  fangs,  in  which  lie  all  the  power  of  the  ani- 
mal, are  of  the  greatest  importance  to  him,  and  their 
want  of  solidity  makes  them  liable  to  remain  in  the- 
wounds  which  they  have  made.  In  consequence  of  this, 
they  enjoy  the  same  privilege  as  the  teeth  of  the  croco- 
dile, and  in  a  still  greater  degree  even.  Behind  each 


BEPTILU.  329 

poison  fang  lie  in  wait,  not  one  nor  two,  but  several  sen- 
tinel germs,  ready  at  the  first  alarm  of  a  loss  to  set  to 
work  and  re-supply  the  disarmed  serpent  with  his  ven- 
omous needle.  So  the  serpent  also  lives  in  a  state  of 
perpetual  childhood  :  he  is  always  growing  ;  and  I  could 
not  tell  you  the  exact  natural  limits  of  his  life  any  more 
than  of  that  of  the  crocodile.  They  are  gentlemen  who  do 
not  allow,  themselves  to  be  very  closely  studied  in  a  state 
of  freedom.  But  these  also  grow  very  slowly,  and  some 
have  been  met  with  whose  size  had  extended  quite  enor- 
mously from  their  first  start.  I  ought  to  tell  you,  once 
for  all,  that  this  indefinite  growth,  joined  to  extreme 
longevity,  is  found  in  many  of  the  inferior  species  whom 
we  have  yet  to  consider.  It  seems  the  portion  of  these 
unfinished  creatures,  in  which  nature  has  only  as  it  were 
sketched  in  her  work,  and  who  seem  vowed  to  endless 
youth,  in  testimony  of  the  state  of  childhood  they  repre- 
sent, a  state  transitory  among  the  superior  animals,  but 
permanent  with  them.  It  belonged  of  right,  therefore, 
to  the  serpent,  which  is  the  most  unfinished  animal  we 
have  yet  met  with,  and  who,  at  the  first  glance,  seems 
almost  reduced  to  a  mere  digestive  tube,  lodged  between 
a  vertebral  column  and  a  series  of  small  ribs,  whose  num- 
ber sometimes  reaches  three  hundred. 

The  liver,  which,  with  us,  presents  such  a  distinct  and 
bulky  mass,  is  here  elongated  into  a  thin  cord,  which 
runs  the  whole  length  of  the  oesophagus  and  intestine, 
to  the  walls  of  which  it  is,  to  some  extent,  attached. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  lungs.  There  is  rarely  room 
for  the  full  development  of  two  in  this  narrow  conduit, 
where  everything  has  to  follow  the  shape  of  the  master 
of  the  house :  one,  therefore,  is  often  merely  indicated 
by  a  very  slight  protuberance  ;  the  other,  presenting 
the  appearance  of  a  long  tube,  which  extends  nearly 


330  EEPTILIA. 

half-way  down  the  body,  and  whose  feeble  action  halts 
periodically  at  each  of  those  monstrous  repasts,  after 
which  the  torpid  animal  becomes  nothing  but  a  huge 
digesting  machine.  We  have  now  reached  the  extreme 
limits  of  that  organization,  the  most  perfect  model  of 
which  we  find  in  man,  and  which  is  no  longer  to  be  re- 
cognized in  fishes. 


LETTER    XXXVI. 

PISCES.    (Fishes.) 

WE  are  becoming  terribly  learned,  my  poor  child,  and 
I  am  half  afraid  you  will  be  getting  tired  of  me.  When  I 
was  little  myself,  I  had  rather  a  fancy  for  breaking  open 
those  barking  pasteboard  dogs  you  know  so  well,  to  see 
what  was  inside  them.  Why  should  you  not,  then,  feel 
a  certain  amount  of  interest  in  looking  with  me  into 
the  insides  of  real  animals?  Still  I  cannot  conceal 
from  myself  that  the  subject  grows  very  serious  at  last, 
and  that  while  I  am  busied  in  struggling  to  make  my- 
self intelligible  through  the  endless  crowd  of  facts  which 
surround  me,  I  am  apt  to  neglect  chatting  with  you  as 
we  go  along.  Happily,  however,  here  is  an  opportunity 
for  so  doing. 

Up  to  the  present  time  we  have  lived,  as  it  were,  upon 
the  explanations  I  gave  you  whilst  studying  the  action 
of  life  in  yourself,  and  all  the  organs  we  have  met  with 
since,  have  been  only,  properly  speaking,  reproductions, 
more  or  less  exact,  of  those  which  you  yourself  possess. 
But,  in  passing  over  into  the  kingdom  of  fishes,  we  find 
ourselves  in  the  presence  of  something  altogether  new, 
and  I  must  go  back  to  our  old  familiar  style  of  talking 
to  open  the  subject. 

Take  a  water-bottle  half-filled  with  water,  and  shake 
it  well,  and  you  will  see  a  quantity  of  white  froth  come 
to  the  surface  of  the  liquid.  This  is  the  air  which, 

(331) 


332  PISCES. 

having  been  drawn  in  by  the  water,  as  it  went  up  and 
down  in  the  battle,  is  now  struggling  to  fly  off  again  in 
bubbles  as  fast  as  it  can.  But  the  whole  of  it  does  not 
get  away  ;  a  small  portion  remains  behind,  and  melts, 
as  it  were,  into  the  water,  as  a  morsel  of  sugar  would 
do,  taking  up  its  abode  therein.  This  seems  odd  to  you, 
but  I  will  tell  you  how  you  may  convince  yourself  of 
the  fact.  Get  a  small  white  glass  bottle,  slightly  rounded, 
and  thin  at  the  bottom,  if  possible  ;  fill  it  with  water, 
and  hold  it  for  a  short  time  over  a  lighted  taper.  If 
you  do  this  carefully  there  is  no  danger.  You  will 
soon  see  tiny  little  balls,  looking  like  drops  of  silver, 
rise  from  the  bottom  of  the  bottle,  come  up  to  the  sur- 
face, and  burst.  This  is  the  air  which  was  installed  in 
the  water,  as  I  described  above,  and  which  is  now  run- 
ning away  from  the  heat  of  the  candle,  as  the  inhabi- 
tants run  away  from  a  house  on  fire.  After  a  time  the 
whole  will  have  passed  off,  and  the  little  balls  will  cease 
to  rise. 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  fishes  ?  you  ask. 

A  very  great  deal,  I  assure  you,  dear  child.  If  there 
had  been  a  little  fish  in  your  bottle,  before  it  was  exposed 
to  the  flame,  it  would  have  found  means  to  make  use  of 
that  air,  whose  original  presence  in  the  water  you  can- 
not refuse  to  believe  after  having  seen  it  come  out.  It 
is  with  this  air  that  fishes  breathe  in  the  water.  They 
do  so  rather  feebly,  I  admit ;  but,  as  if  to  make  up  to 
them  for  the  small  amount  of  the  air  placed  at  their  dis- 
posal, it  contains  more  oxygen  than  that  we  breathe  our- 
selves, because  oxygen,  dissolving  more  readily  in  water 
than  nitrogen,  is  there  in  greater  proportion.  Of  course, 
you  do  not  suppose  that  fishes  have  lungs  like  ours  ?  I 
dare  say  you  know  the  two  large  openings  on  each  side  of 
their  head,  called  gills,  by  which  the  fishermen  string 


PISCES.  333 

them  together  to  carry  them  away  more  easily  ?  It  is 
there  you  will  find  their  lungs,  to  which  the  name  of 
branchice,  or  gills,  has  been  given,  because  they  are  so 
different  from  other  organs  of  respiration  that  it  was 
impossible  to  use  one  word  for  the  two.  The  arrange- 
ment of  the  gills  varies  considerably  in  the  different 
species,  but  their  general  form  is  the  same  everywhere. 
They  are  composed  of  a  number  of  plates,  consisting  of 
an  infinitude  of  leaflets,  arranged  like  a  fringe,  and  sus- 
pended by  bony  arches,  into  which  plates  and  leaflets 
the  blood  pours  from  a  thousand  invisible  canals. 

First  of  all,  then,  we  must  see  how  blood  circulates  in 
fishes. 

Like  reptiles,  their  heart  has  only  one  ventricle,  and 
yet  the  arterial  and  venous  blood  go  each  its  separate 
way  without  the  slightest  risk  of  being  mixed  ;  but  this 
is  because  fishes  have  not  that  double  system  of  veins 
and  arteries  which  hitherto  we  have  always  met  with. 
The  venous  blood  goes  to  the  heart,  which  drives  it  into 
the  gills,  from  whence  it  passes  forward  of  its  own  ac- 
cord, as  arterial  blood  into  the  organs,  under  the  re- 
mote influence  of  the  original  impetus  from  the  heart, 
the  newly-arrived  blood  incessantly  driving  the  other 
before  it  into  the  vessels  of  circulation.  It  does  not 
flow  very  quickly,  as  you  may  suppose  ;  and  as  the  heart 
is  close  to  the  head,  its  action  is  but  very  feebly  felt  at 
the  extremity  of  the  body,  when  this  happens  to  be  very 
long.  Nature  has,  in  consequence,  taken  pity  on  the 
eel,  whose  tail  is  so  far  from  its  heart,  and  provided  ac- 
cordingly. Dr.  Marshall  Hall  has  discovered  near  the 
tip  a  second,  reinforcing  heart,  so  to  speak,  which  has 
its  own  pulsations,  independent  of  the  pulsations  of  the 
one  above,  and  gives  a  fresh  impetus  to  the  sluggish 


334  PISCES. 

blood,*  which  otherwise,  as  it  would  seem,  would  scarcely 
be  able  to  accomplish  the  long  return  journey.  Finally, 
even  with  an  additional  heart  in  the  tail,  the  circulation 
among  fishes  is  quite  on  a  par  with  their  respiration. 
They  have  a  melancholy  steward,  whose  legs  are  very 
heavy,  and  his  pockets  very  light,  and  their  life  comes 
down  a  peg  lower  in  consequence.  It  is  always  the 
same  life  nevertheless — you  must  never  lose  sight  of  that 
fact :  it  gets  low  in  consequence  of  the  imperfection  of 
the  machine,  but  without  changing  its  nature,  any  more 
than  the  light  in  our  different  sorts  of  lighting  appa- 
ratus. You  remember  that  comparison  of  the  lamp 
with  which  I  began  my  story,  and  which  you  could  not 
at  the  time  see  the  full  value  of?  From  a  dungeon 
lamp  up  to  a  candle,  you  have  always  grease  burning  in 
the  air  at  the  end  of  the  threads  of  a  wick.  It  does 
not  burn  equally  well  everywhere,  and  does  not  always 
give  the  same  amount  of  light ;  but  that  is  all  the  differ- 
ence. From  the  mammal  to  the  fish,  it  is  always  hydro- 
gen and  carbon  (as  we  have  said  of  the  grease)  which 
oxygen  sets  on  fire  in  the  human  body  at  the  fine-drawn 
extremities  of  the  blood-vessels  ;  only  the  fire  is  lower 
in  some  than  others,  and  the  life  with  it.  Let  us  now 
look  at  the  circulation  of  water  in  the  fish's  body. 

The  gills  communicate  with  the  mouth  by  a  sort  of 
grating,  formed  by  the  bony  arches  to  which  the  gill- 
plates  are  suspended.  The  fish  begins  by  swallowing 
water,  which  then  passes  through  the  grating  and  circu- 
lates round  the  innumerable  leaflets  of  which  each  plate 
is  composed,  and  among  which  creep  the  blood-vessels. 
It  is  through  the  thin  coats  of  these  leaflets  that  the 

*  Many  observers  refer  this  to  the  lymphatic  system. — Tn. 


PISCES.  335 

mysterious  exchange  is  made  of  the  unemployed  oxygen 
in  the  water  and  the  carbonic  acid  in  the  blood.  When 
this  is  over,  the  cover  which  closes  the  gills  opens  to  let 
out  the  water,  and  a  fresh  gulp  takes  its  place  ;  and  so 
on  continually.  When  the  fish  is  out  of  the  water  its 
gills  fall  together  and  dry  up  ;  the  course  of  the  blood, 
already  so  weak,  is  interrupted  by  the  breaking  down 
and  shrinking  of  the  vessels,  and  the  animal  can  no 
longer  breathe ;  so  that  we  have  here  the  curious  in- 
stance of  a  creature  breathing  oxygen  like  ourselves, 
who  is  drowned,  if  we  may  use  the  expression,  in  the  air 
in  which  we  find  life,  and  lives  in  the  water  in  which  we 
are  drowned.  While  he  is  in  the  water  matters  take 
another  course,  and  his  gills,  moistened  and  supported, 
accommodate  themselves  perfectly  to  the  contact  of  the 
air,  which  desires  nothing  better  than  to  give  up  its 
oxygen  to  the  blood,  through  the  coats  of  the  capillaries. 
Accordingly  you  will  often  see  fishes — carps,  for  example 
— come  to  the  surface  of  the  water  to  inhale  the  air  like 
a  mammal  or  a  reptile.  This  is  a  valuable  resource, 
which  supplements  the  parsimonious  allowance  of  air 
given  out  to  them  by  the  water.  There  are  even  cer- 
tain fishes  whose  gills,  more  firmly  closed  than  those  of 
others,  have,  in  addition,  a  number  of  cells,  which  retain 
for  a  considerable  time  a  sufficient  quantity  of  water  to 
preserve  the  gills  in  their  natural  state.  These  fishes 
can  easily  take  an  airing  on  land,  where  they  breathe 
the  air  as  you  or  I  do,  and  are  downright  amphibians. 

The  most  celebrated  of  these  is  the  Andbas,  or  "  climb- 
ing-fish/7 an  Indian  fish,  which  not  only  can  remain  many 
days  out  of  the  water,  but  also  amuses  itself  by  climbing 
up  the  palm  trees — it  is  hard  to  say  how — and  establish 
ing  itself  in  the  little  pools  of  water  left  by  the  rain  at 
the  roots  of  the  leaves.  But  we  need  not  go  to  India  to 


336  PISCES. 

find  these  wandering  fishes.  There  is  one  of  them  living 
among  ourselves  who  can  walk  about  in  the  grass,  and  I 
was  talking  to  you  about  him  only  just  now — that  is  the 
eel.  If  you  ever  put  eels  in  a  fish-pond  you  must,  I  as- 
sure you,  try  to  make  it  ageeable  to  them,  otherwise  they 
will  have  no  scruple  in  setting  politeness  at  defiance  and 
moving  off  to  seek  their  fortune  elsewhere.  In  a  country 
walk,  when  the  dew  is  on  the  ground,  you  yourself  may 
chance  to  come  across  one  or  two  of  these  gentlemen, 
who  have  had  their  reasons  for  changing  their  residence, 
and  whom  you  will  see  gliding  so  briskly  along  that  they 
will  deceive  you  into  taking  them  for  snakes  if  you  have 
not  a  very  experienced  eye  ;  so  much  so,  that  in  certain 
parts  of  France  where  the  peasants  ate  snakes  formerly, 
they  reconciled  themselves  to  the  sickly  idea  by  christen- 
ing them  hedgerow-eels. 

On  the  other  hand,  fishes  may  be  drowned  in  water 
just  as  easily  as  ourselves  if  it  does  not  contain  air. 
The  little  fish  who  could  have  lived  very  well  in  the 
bottle  we  were  just  now  talking  about  before  you  expos- 
ed it  to  the  flame  of  the  taper,  would  have  died  in  it 
after  all  the  air-bubbles  had  gone  off  ;  and  I  hope  I  need 
not  tell  you  why.  In  the  same  way,  if  you  leave  fishes 
too  long  in  a  small  quantity  of  water  without  renewing 
it,  they  suffer  exactly  as  we  do  if  the  air  which  we 
breathe  is  not  changed  often  enough.  As  soon  as  they 
have  consumed  what  oxygen  is  in  the  water,  it  can  no 
longer  keep  them  alive.  It  is  then,  especially,  you  will 
see  them  come  gasping  *to  the  surface  to  call  upon  the 
air  for  help.  Those  who  keep  gold  fish  in  a  glass  bowl 
ought  to  know  this,  and  to  change  their  water  oftener 
than  is  generally  done.  When  we  take  poor  little  crea- 
tures from  their  natural  way  of  life,  and  set  a  human 
providence  over  them  in  the  place  of  the  Divine  one 


PISCES.  337 

which  has  hitherto  been  their  safeguard,  the  least  we  can 
do  is  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  laws  of  their  exist- 
ence, so  that  we  may  not  expose  them  to  the  risk  of  suf- 
fering by  our  ignorance.  Finally,  there  are  fishes  whose 
gills,  still  more  greedy  of  oxygen,  will  not  act  well  ex- 
cept in  thoroughly  aerated  water,  and  who  would  soon 
die  in  our  tanks.  This  is  the  case  with  the  trout,  who 
is  only  happy  in  the  waters  of  hilly  countries;  rich  with 
all  the  air  they  have  carried  along  with  them  as  they 
fell  from  rock  to  rock.  Now  that  people  are  beginning 
to  do  with  fishes  what  has  long  since  been  done  with 
sheep  and  oxen — keep  them  in  flocks  to  have  them  always 
ready  for  use — you  may  perhaps  hear  a  good  deal  said 
about  vessels  made  expressly  for  the  carriage  of  trout, 
with  a  thousand  inventions  besides  for  sending  air  into 
the  water,  and  you  will  not  have  to  ask  the  meaning  of 
this  now. 

I  promised  last  time  that  I  would  revert  in  the  chapter 
of  fishes  to  that  marvellous  transformation  of  the  croco- 
dile which  has  been  explained  by  the  torrent  of  water  he 
draws  into  his  stomach.  You  could  understand  nothing 
about  it  the  other  day  ;  but  after  what  we  have  just  seen 
the  explanation  suggests  itself.  Just  as  the  extraordi- 
nary activity  of  life  in  birds  is  explained  by  that  double 
oxygenization  of  blood,  of  which  part  takes  place  in  the 
lungs  and  part  in  the  reservoirs  of  air  placed  everywhere 
in  the  way  of  the  capillaries,  so  this  sudden  increase  of 
energy  in  the  crocodile  the  moment  it  plunges  into  water 
may  be  explained  by  a  second  respiration  suddenly  es- 
tablished in  the  vast  cavity  of  the  abdomen,  by  the  con- 
tact of  the  capillaries  with  the  water  which  penetrates 
there.  Hence  the  crocodile  would  then  have,  like  the 
bird,  a  double  respiration  :  only  with  him  the  one  would 
be  permanent  and  from  the  lungs,  the  other  temporary 
15 


338  PISCES. 

and  from  the  stomach.  By  this,  on  the  one  hand,  he 
would  rise  up  to  the  birds,  since  the  blood  encounters 
air  twice  over  in  its  course,  while,  at  the  same  time,  he 
would  plunge  into  the  world  of  fishes,  since  the  blood 
has  to  seek  air  in  the  water.  The  above,  be  it  remem- 
bered, is  only  a  supposition,  and  I  ought  to  add  that  in 
this  case  there  would  be  a  good  deal  of  danger  in  ob- 
serving nature  at  work,  for  in  front  of  the  laboratory, 
where  she  is  toiling  in  secret,  stands  on  guard  a  row  of 
teeth,  by  no  means  encouraging  to  indiscreet  intruders. 
At  the  same  time,  if  there  ever  were  a  legitimate  con- 
jecture, this  is  it.  Everything  seems  to  confirm  it; 
and  if  it  be  true,  we  should  have  in  the  crocodile  a 
specimen  of  each  of  the  four  systems  adopted  by  nature 
for  the  mammal,  the  bird,  the  reptile  and  the  fish.  At 
first  I  spoke  of  two,  then  of  three  ;  so  that  even  in  my 
addition  I  was  modestly  below  the  mark,  and  had  really 
some  grounds  for  recommending  our  friends  the  classi- 
fiers to  beware  what  they  asserted  in  this  case. 

Talking  of  puzzling  classifications,  this  is  just  the  place 
for  mentioning  the  batrackians,  who  have  been  made 
into  a  class  by  themselves,  but  who  most  distinctly  be- 
long to  two  classes  at  the  same  time ;  not  like  the  cro- 
codile by  details  borrowed  from  each,  but  by  a  funda- 
mental change  which  takes  place  at  a  certain  period  in 
their  organization.  The  batrachians  are  in  reality  rep- 
tiles, but  they  are  reptiles  which  begin  by  being  fishes, 
and  real  fishes  too. 

If  you  have  ever  strolled  about  in  the  country,  you 
must  have  often  come  across  those  great  pools  of  water 
which  collect  at  rainy  seasons  in  the  ruts  of  deep  lanes. 
Amuse  yourself  by  looking  into  them  in  early  summer, 
and  unless  the  land  is  too  parched  and  dry,  the  chances 
are  that  you  will  see  quantities  of  little  black  fishes. 


PISCES.  339 

almost  entirely  composed  of  a  long  tail  joined  to  a  large 
head,  playing  jovially  in  the  muddy  waters,  and  looking 
as  if  they  had  dropped  there  from  the  skies.  These  are 
young  frogs — tadpoles,  as  we  call  them — and  they  are 
beginning  their  apprenticeship  of  life.  Enclosed  in  each 
side  of  those  great  heads,  they  have  gills,  and  they 
breathe  in  the  same  manner  as  fishes.  Presently  the 
two  hind  feet  begin  to  bud  out  and  grow,  little  by  little  ; 
then  the  fore  feet ;  finally,  the  tail  wastes  away  till  it 
disappears :  and  thus  insensibly  the  tadpole  is  trans- 
formed into  a  frog.  Observe  here  that  the  tadpole's 
gills  share  the  same  fate  as  his  fish-tail ;  they  wither  and 
disappear  by  slow  degrees,  and  gradually  as  they  do  so, 
his  lungs  are  developed.  The  animal  changes  his  class 
very  quietly,  and  without  ceasing  to  be  genuinely  the 
same,  although  it  would  be  impossible  at  last  to  recog- 
nize the  old  individual  in  the  new  if  you  had  not  heard 
its  history  beforehand.  This  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
exemplifications  I  know  of  the  mysterious  process  by 
which  nature  has  insensibly  raised  animals  from  one 
class  to  another,  always  improving  upon  her  original 
plan  without  ever  abandoning  it. 

On  the  shores  of  certain  subterranean  lakes  which 
exist  in  Carniola,  a  country  subject  at  this  time  to  Aus- 
tria, there  are  to  be  found  batrachians  far  more  ambi- 
tious than  our  frog — namely,  the  proteans.  These  cumu- 
late rather  than  change  :  they  become  reptiles  without 
ceasing  to  be  fishes,  if  I  may  so  express  it ;  they  devel- 
op lungs  as  they  grow  up,  and  yet  keep  their  gills.  I 
could  tell  you  a  thousand  other  particulars  about  these 
batrachians  if  I  were  to  examine  them  all  in  succession  ; 
for  it  is  a  very  motley  family,  in  the  bosom  of  which  the 
transition  from  reptiles  to  fishes  is  in  some  imperceptible 
manner  accomplished  ;  from  the  frog,  which  the  unani- 


340  PISCES. 

mous  consent  of  mankind  has  always  ranked  among 
reptiles,  to  the  axolotl  or  siren,  who  lives  in  Mexican 
lakes  ;  and  who,  feature,  for  feature,  is  exactly  like  a 
carp,  with  four  little  feet  fastened  under  him.  To  be 
quite  in  order,  the  batrachians  ought  to  have  followed 
the  reptiles,  for  their  interior  organization  is  the  same  ; 
but  how  could  I  tell  you  about  their  gills  without  ex- 
plaining that  there  was  air  in  the  water?  and  I  did 
not  want,  for  the  sake  of  these  intruders,  whose  baby- 
hood-gills only  just  appear  and  disappear,  to  rob  the  his- 
tory of  the  fishes  of  its  most  interesting  points. 

Let  us  be  satisfied,  then,  with  this  passing  glance  at  a 
dubious  class,  whose  history  is  only  a  repetition  of  two 
others,  and  let  us  return  to  our  friends  the  fishes.  We 
have  seen  how  they  breathe,  now  let  us  look  how  they 
eat. 

The  modifications  of  the  digestive  apparatus  are  end- 
less among  fishes.  The  lampreys,  who  are  placed  in  the 
lower  ranks  of -the  class,  carry  out  to  its  fullest  extent 
the  type  which  we  have  already  seen  indicated  in  the 
serpent.  The  digestive  tube  is  quite  straight,  without 
any  perceptible  swelling,  and  does  not  even  go  the  whole 
length  of  the  body.  It  comes  to  an  end  at  some  dis- 
tance from  the  tail.  Among  some  fishes  an  odd  ten- 
dency begins  to  display  itself,  which  we  shall  meet  with 
again  farther  on.  The  digestive  tube,  after  going  down- 
wsrrds  towards  the  bottom  of  the  body,  as  we  have  seen 
it  do  so  constantly  hitherto,  doubles  back,  and  comes  up 
again  to  the  throat,  under  which  it  empties  itself.  In 
most  cases  the  stomach  is  distinct ;  but  it  assumes  a 
thousand  different  forms;  as  if  nature  had  wished  to  try 
her  hand  in  all  sorts  of  ways  in  the  construction  of  these 
imperfect  vertebrates,  before  adopting  the  definite  model 
which  was  to  serve  for  the  others. 


PISCES.  31 

The  liver  is  enormous,  and  generally  contains  a  great 
quantity  of  oil,  the  taste  of  which  you  will  know  if  you 
have  ever  swallowed  a  spoonful  of  cod-liver  oil ;  but  in 
most  fishes  its  old  companion,  the  pancreas,  has  disap- 
peared. In  its  stead  you  will  find,  close  by  the  outlet 
of  the  pylorus,  the  open  ends  of  certain  small  tubes, 
which  are  shut  in  at  their  upper  extremity  like  a  "  blind 
alley,"  and  through  which  descends  into  the  interstices 
a  thick  glairy  fluid,  given  out  from  their  sides  or  walls. 
The  result  is  the  same,  you  see,  although  the  organ  is 
different ;  and,  remarkably  enough,  these  little  tubes  are 
wanting  among  fishes,  which,  like  carp,  have  a  species 
of  salivary  glands  in  their  mouths,  of  which  the  others 
show  no  trace  ;  from  which  one  may  fairly  conclude  that 
these  glands  and  tubes  mutually  supply  each  other's 
places.  Here,  then,  you  see  an  instance  of  the  light 
which  different  animal  organisations  throw  upon  each 
other  when  they  are  compared  together.  In  fact,  this 
one  establishes  pretty  clearly  the  real  office  of  the  pan- 
creas in  the  higher  races,  exhibiting  it  to  us  as  an  inter- 
nal salivary  gland,  intended  to  complete  the  work  only 
begun  by  those  in  the  mouth,  in  the  case  of  lazy  people 
who  swallow  their  food  too  quickly. 

There  is  the  same  diversity  in  the  mouth  as  in  the  in- 
testine. Some  fishes,  like  the  skate,  have  no  tongue  at 
all.  Others,  instead  of  a  tongue,  have  a  hard  dry  fila- 
ment, very  nearly  immovable,  and  which  one  would  think 
was  put  there  like  a  stake,  to  show  the  place  where  the 
tongue  is  to  be  found  in  the  more  perfect  organisations. 
There  are  even  fishes,  like  the  perch  and  the  pike,  whose 
tongue  is  furnished  with  teeth,  or  rather  fangs  ;  an  evi- 
dent sign  that  it  has  forfeited  the  confidential  position 
occupied  by  your  own  good  little  porter.  You  must 
know  also  that  the  perch  and  the  pike,  like  many  other 


342  PISCES. 

of  their  fellows,  have  teeth  all  over  the  mouth.  This 
invasion  of  the  palate  by  teeth,  which  began  in  the  lizard 
and  the  serpent,  assumes  alarming  proportions  here.  It 
is  not  merely  the  roof  of  the  palate  which  is  spiked  with 
teeth :  above,  below,  at  the  sides,  everywhere  to  the  very 
limits  of  the  oesophagus,  the  little  fangs  triumphantly 
stick  out  their  slender  points.  It  is  impossible,  there- 
fore, to  state  their  number.  Nature  has  scattered  them 
broadcast  without  counting,  just  as  she  has  done  with  the 
hairs  of  the  beard  round  the  human  mouth  ;  and  the  com- 
parison is  not  so  impertinent  as  you  may  think.  They 
sometimes  form  an  actual  internal  beard,  even  thicker 
than  our  outer  one,  and  which  sprouts  from  the  skin  into 
the  bargain.  There  is  one  fish  whose  teeth  are  so  deli- 
cate and  so  close  together  that,  in  passing  your  finger 
over  them,  you  would  think  you  were  touching  velvet. 
This  does  not  refer  to  the  shark,  mind.  His  teeth  are 
sharp-cutting  notched  blades,  hard  as  steel,  arranged  in 
threatening  rows  round  the  entrance  of  his  mouth,  and 
cut  a  man  in  two  as  easily  as  your  incisors  do  a  piece  of 
apple.  Others,  such  as  the  skate,  have  their  mouths 
paved — that  is  the  proper  term — with  perfectly  flat  teeth. 
The  first  time  your  mamma  is  sending  to  buy  fish  beg 
her  to  let  you  have  a  skate's  head  to  look  at.  You  will 
be  interested  to  see  the  small  square  ivory  plates  laid 
close  adjoining  each  other,  like  the  tiles  of  a  church  floor. 
It  is  in  fact  a  regular  hall-pavement,  over  which  the  vis- 
itors glide  untouched,  and  are  then  swallowed  down  in 
the  lump  ;  thus  entering  straight  into  the  house  without 
having  been  stopped  by  the  inscription  nature  has  placed 
over  your  door  and  mine — "  Speak  to  the  Porter." 

But  all  this  is  nothing  compared  to  the  lamprey's  en- 
trance-hall, which  differs  from  ours  in  quite  another  way. 
The  lamprey,  as  I  have  already  told  you,  ranks  almost 


PISCES.  343 

lowest  among  fishes,  and  consequently  among  veitebrate 
animals,  of  which  fishes  form  the  rear-guard.  Indeed,  it 
is -almost  stretching  a  point  to  consider  her  worthy  to 
bear  the  proud  title  of  a  vertebrate  at  all ;  for  the  ver- 
tebral column,  so  clearly  marked  in  other  fishes,  where 
it  forms  the  large  central  bone,  is  only  faintly  indicated 
in  certain  species  of  lampreys,  by  a  soft  thread  (or  fila- 
ment), which  is  rather  a  membrane  than  a  bony  chaplet, 
and  at  the  top  of  this  mockery  of  a  vertebral  column  is 
the  creature's  mouth.  If  you  ever  had  leeches  on,  you 
will  remember  the  sharp  sting  you  felt  when  the  little 
beasts  bit  you.  Well,  the  lamprey  feeds  herself  just  in 
the  same  way  as  the  leech  does.  Her  mouth  forms  a 
completely  circular  ring,  which  sticks  to  the  prey,  and 
through  which  runs  backward  and  forward  a  small  tongue 
armed  with  lancets.  This  darts  out  to  pierce  the  skin, 
and  draws  in  the  blood  as  it  retreats.  Round  your  lips 
well ;  dip  them  so  into  a  glass  of  water,  and  draw  back 
your  tongue,  and  you  will  at  once  feel  the  water  rise 
into  your  mouth.  It  is  by  a  similar  sort  of  proceeding 
that  leeches  relieve  people  of  the  blood  they  want  to  get 
rid  of ;  and  in  the  same  way  the  lamprey  draws  out  the 
blood  of  the  animals  upon  which  she  fastens. 

What  a  long  way  we  have  come  already  !  How  very 
far  we  find  ourselves  here  from  the  little  mouths  we  first 
talked  about  as  chewing  their  eatables  so  prettily! 
With  the  lamprey  we  bid  adieu  to  the  class  Vertebrata 
— the  nobility  of  the  animal  kingdom — among  whom 
nevertheless  we  must  distinguish  between  the  peer,  who 
approaches  nearest  the  person  of  his  sovereign,  and  the 
inferior  provincial  lords  who  live  at  a  hundred  miles' 
distance.  There  is  only  one  step  from  the  lamprey  to 
the  moUusks  or  soft-bodied  animals,  and  this  is  the  course 
which  animal  organisation  seems  really  to  have  taken 


344  PISCES. 

in  its  progress.  But  nature  never  moves  forward  in  a 
single  straight  line.  In  passing  from  the  mollusk  to  the 
fish  to  get  thence  to  the  higher  vertebrates,  she  turned 
aside  in  another  direction  toward  a  class  of  animals 
which  rises  far  above  mollusks,  but  which  leads  to  noth- 
ing beyond. 

One  would  think  there  had  been  a  check  here,  as  if 
the  creative  power,  having  discovered  that  it  was  going 
in  a  wrong  direction,  had  retraced  its  steps  ;  if  it  be 
allowable  to  apply  common  ideas  and  expressions  to  our 
conceptions  of  that  Great  Intelligence  which  has  ar- 
ranged the  plan  of  the  mysterious  ladder  of  animal  life. 

The  animals  we  must  examine  next,  on  account  of 
their  superiority  to  the  rest,  are  insects.  Small  as  the  ant 
is,  it  would  not  be  right  to  let  her  be  preceded  by  the 
oyster. 


LETTER  XXXVII. 

INSECTA.     (Insects.) 

BEFORE^speaking  of  insects,  my  dear  child,  it  will  be 
necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to  tell  you  to  what  primary 
division  they  belong  and  on  what  characters  this  division 
has  been  established.  And  here  I  find  myself  in  a  dif- 
ficulty. We  have  been  but  too  learned  already,  and  now 
we  run  the  risk  of  becoming  still  more  so,  if  we  com- 
mence an  attack  on  the  three  primary  divisions  which 
follow  the  vertebrates.  We  shall  have  to  encounter 
terrible  names  and  tedious  details,  besides  having  to 
take  into  account  a  thousand  things  of  which  we  have 
not  yet  spoken.  We  are  going  on  quietly  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  feeding  machine  which  occupies  the  middle 
of  the  body,  and  learned  men  never  looked  in  that  di- 
rection for  the  establishment  of  their  divisions  ;  between 
ourselves,  it  was  not  accommodating  enough.  They 
have  fallen  back  upon  the  locomotive  apparatus  (move- 
ment machine)  which  affects  the  body  all  over,  and  which 
they  have  proclaimed  to  be  the  leading  feature  of  the 
animal  organization,  without  noticing  however  that  it 
is,  after  all,  but  the  servant  of  the  other.  It  is  true  that 
the  great  divisions  are  more  easily  established  upon  this 
point  than  the  other,  because  the  differences  are  more 
decided.  It  separates  what  the  other  unites,  and  thus  it 
is  that  nature  carries  on  that  beautiful  combination 
which  the  Germans  have  so  accurately  named  "  Unity  in 
15*  (345) 


346  INSECTA. 

Variety"  that  is  to  say,  she  is  always  at  work,  as  I  have 
already  told  you,  on  the  same  canvas,  but  always  em- 
broidering* it  with  a  different  pattern. 

Wait !  I  have  something  to  promise,  if  you  are  very 
good,  and  if  this  history  (that  of  the  feeding  machine) 
should  have  given  you  a  taste  for  inquiry.  I  will  tell 
you  another  time  the  history  of  the  movement  machine, 
and  there  the  classification  of  our  learned  men  will  come 
in  naturally  very  well.  In  the  meantime  we  will  do  as 
they  do,  and  just  shut  our  eyes  to  their  divisions,  in 
which  the  feeding  machine  can  have  no  interest,  because 
they  were  established  without  reference  to  it.  We  will 
content  ourselves,  then,  without  further  pretension  to 
science,  with  modestly  examining  the  last  transformations 
of  our  pet  machine  in  the  principal  groups  of  the  inferior 
animals  ;  of  which  groups  I  will  now  tell  you  the  names 
in  their  proper  order.  They  are  as  follows  :  Insects, 
Crustaceans,  Mollusks,  Worms,  and  Zoophytes.  You 
must  take  these  names  on  trust ;  those  which  you  do  not 
understand  will  be  explained  in  their  places. 

1.  Insects. — I  know  not  where  it  was  I  once  read  that 
there  are  said  to  be  something  like  a  hundred  thousand 
different  species  of  insects ;  and  I  verily  believe  this  is  not 
all.  Of  course  we  shall  not  attempt  to  review  the  whole 
of  this  formidable  battalion.  Let  us  take  one  of  those 
you  are  most  familiar  with — the  cockchafer,  for  in- 
stance— and  examine  what  goes  on  in  his  inside.  The 
history  is  nearly  that  of  all  the  others. 

"  Fly  away,  cockchafer,  fly !"  says  the  song ;  and  surely 
it  is  a  bird  that  we  have  here,  and  a  bird  which  will  ap- 
pear to  you  even  more  wonderful  than  those  of  which  I 
have  already  spoken,  when  you  have  considered  the  sim- 
plicity, and  at  the  same  time  the  strength,  of  his  organi- 
zation. His  mode  of  flight  is  rather  lumbering,  it  is 


INSECTA.  347 

true  ;  he  is,  in  comparison  with  the  large  flies,  what  the 
ox  is  to  the  deer  ;  but  when  you  contrast  the  weight  of 
his  thick  body  with  the  delicacy  and  narrow  dimensions 
of  the  two  membranes  which  sustain  him  in  the  air,  you 
may  well  ask  yourself  how  those  little  morsels  of  wings, 
thin  as  gold-beater's  skin,  can  carry  such  a  mass  along. 
In  fact,  they  only  accomplish  this  feat  of  strength  by 
dint  of  an  excess  of  activity  almost  startling  to  think  of. 
When  you  run  as  fast  as  you  can,  how  many  times,  think 
you,  do  you  move  your  legs  in  one  second  ?  You  would 
be  somewhat  puzzled  to  say ;  and  so  should  I :  but  I  defy 
you  to  count  ten.  Now  the  bird  makes  his  wing  move 
much  oftener  when  he  beats  the  air  with  rapid  blows  as 
he  flies  ;  but  even  he  does  not  strike  a  hundred  strokes 
in  a  second  :  and  what  is  this  to  the  feats  of  the  cock- 
chafer's wing?  It  is  not  hundreds  but  thousands  of 
times  that  he  flaps  his  wings  in  a  second  ;  and  here  let 
me  hint,  by-the-by,  that  when  people  seriously  wish  to 
find  out  a  method  of  travelling  in  the  air,  they  will  lay 
aside  balloons,  of  which  they  can  make  nothing  in  their 
present  condition,  and  will  set  to  work  to  fabricate  ma- 
chines with  wings  which  shall  beat  the  air  as  fast  as 
those  of  the  cockchafer.  This  sounds  extravagant,  but 
I  have  seen  an  electric  pile  fixed  in  a  stand  with  glass 
feet,  which  caused  a  little  hammer  to  beat  thousands  of 
times  in  a  second :  and  surely  the  hammer  could  have 
been  made  to  communicate  its  movement  to  a  small  wing ! 
Forgive  me  this  little  castle  in  the  air !  The  idea  came 
into  my  head  a  long  while  ago,  and  the  cockchafer  has 
just  reminded  me  of  it.  I  will  not,  however,  pursue  the 
subject,  neither  will  I  offer  to  explain  the  method  used 
for  counting  the  beats  of  an  insect's  wing.  That  would 
carry  us  farther  than  would  be  desirable. 
To  return  to  our  little  animal.  I  leave  you  to  imagine 


348  INSECTA. 

the  enormous  amount  of  strength  required  for  such  pre- 
cipitate motion.  We  have  spoken  of  the  rapid  course 
of  the  blood  in  birds  during  flight :  who  shall  calculate 
its  comparative  rate  in  this  fabulously  wonderful  loco- 
motive, the  cockchafer  ?  And  if  we  lift  up  the  cuirass 
which  encases  it,  what  do  we  behold?  Not  a  single 
trace  of  all  the  complicated  circulation-apparatus  you 
have  learnt  to  know  so  well ;  neither  heart  nor  veins 
nor  arteries  ;  only  a  quantity  of  whitish  liquid,  equally 
distributed  throughout  the  whole  internal  cavity.  Not 
a  trace  of  lungs,  nor  any  apparent  means  of  renovation 
for  this  seemingly  motionless  blood  ;  for  blood  it  is,  in 
spite  of  its  color,  or,  at  any  rate,  blood  in  its  first  stage 
of  formation.  It  also  has  its  globules — ill-formed,  it  is 
true,  and  altogether  in  balls — like  those  found  in  the 
chyle  with  us  ;  which  chyle,  be  it  observed,  is  the  same 
color  as  the  blood  of  insects,  and  may  also  be  considered 
blood  in  its  apprenticeship.  By  what  magic,  then,  is 
this  raw,  imperfectly-formed  steward,  who  seems  alto- 
gether stationary,  enabled  to  accomplish  exploits  which 
would  stagger  his  higher-bred  compeers,  agile  and  per- 
fected as  they  are  ?  Where  does  he  pick  up  the  oxygen 
necessary  for  such  repeated  movements,  it  being  an  estab- 
lished fact  that  no  animal  can  move  at  all  without  con- 
suming oxygen,  and  that  the  quantity  consumed  is  in  pro- 
portion to  the  rate  of  motion  ?  Look  under  his  wings 
for  an  answer.  There,  all  along  his  body,  you  will  ob- 
serve a  number  of  small  holes,  pierced  in  a  line,  at  regu- 
lar distances,  and  furnished  with  shutters  of  two  kinds. 
They  are  the  mouths  of  what  are  called  tracheae,  or 
breathing  tubes  :  and  from  them  branch  out  a  multitude 
of  little  canals,  which,  spreading  in  endless  ramifications 
through  every  part  of  the  body,  convey  to  the  whole 
mass  of  the  blood,  from  all  directions,  the  air  which 


INSECTA.  349 

makes  its  way  into  them  through  the  tracheal  holes.  In 
this  case,  you  see,  it  is  not  the  blood  which  seeks  the  air, 
but  the  air  which  seeks  the  blood  ;  whence  arises  a  new 
system  of  circulation,  whose  action  is  all  the  more  ener- 
getic because  it  is  unintermitting,  and  makes  itself  felt 
everywhere  at  the  same  time.  A  little  while  ago  we 
were  wondering  at  the  twofold  respiration  of  birds  ;  yet 
this  is  far  less  surprising  than  the  universally-diffused 
respiration  of  insects,  who  may  well  be  able  to  do  with- 
out lungs,  seeing  that  their  whole  body  is  one  vast  lung 
in  itself. 

For  the  rest,  do  not  trust  to  appearances,  nor  imagine 
that  the  blood  of  our  friend  the  cockchafer  in  reality  re- 
mains motionless  around  the  air-tubes,  idly  drinking  in 
the  oxygen  which  is  brought  to  it.  Though  not  flowing 
in  enclosed  canals,  it  is  not  the  less  continually  displaced 
by  regular  currents,  which  sweep  through  and  renew 
this  apparently  stagnant  pool.  Nor  is  this  the  only  in- 
stance of  such  a  current  presented  to  us  by  nature. 
Guess,  however,  if  you  can,  where  you  will  have  to  look 
for  the  counterpart  to  the  circulation  of  the  cockchafer. 
In  ocean  itself !  But,  remember,  nothing  is  absolutely 
little  or  great  in  nature,  who  applies  her  laws  indiffer- 
ently to  a  world  as  to  an  atom.  The  blood  of  our  world 
is  water,  which  contains  in  itself  all  the  germs  of  fertil- 
ity, and  without  which,  as  I  have  already  told  you,  life 
is  impossible  either  in  the  animal  or  vegetable  kingdom. 
The  water  of  brooks,  streams,  and  rivers,  flows  along  in 
channels,  which,  when  figured  in  a  map,  present  to  the 
eye  of  the  beholder  an  exact  picture  of  the  system  of 
circulation  found  in  the  vertebra  ted  animals.  But  the 
waters  of  the  sea  are  borne  along,  like  the  blood  of  in- 
sects, by  a  secret  circulation,  which  cannot  be  repre- 
sented on  the  map ;  i.e.  by  immense  currents  everlast- 


350  INSECTA. 

ingly  in  action,  some  on  the  surface,  some  in  the  niid- 
heart  of  the  ocean,  which  drive  it  in  ceaseless  course 
from  the  equator  to  the  poles,  from  the  poles  to  the 
equator  ;  so  that  the  Supreme  Intelligence,  in  His  over- 
ruling providence,  has  ordained  the  same  law  to  set  in 
movement  the  immensity  of  ocean,  and  to  effect  circula- 
tion in  the  cockchafer's  few  drops  of  blood.  In  the  lat- 
ter we  find  the  moving  agent  to  be  a  long  tube,  which 
runs  the  whole  length  of  the  back,  and  is  called  the  dor- 
sal vessel  (from  the  Latin  dorsum,  back).  I  told  you 
that  the  cockchafer  had  no  heart  under  his  cuirass,  but 
I  spoke  too  hastily.  The  dorsal  vessel  is  &  true  heart, 
but  a  heart  devoid  of  veins  or  arteries,  and  thrown  into 
the  midst  of  the  blood.  It  dilates  and "  contracts  like 
ours,  sucks  in  the  blood  by  means  of  side-valves,  which 
act  as  our  own  do,  and  drives  it  back  again  into  the 
mass  by  that  valve  at  its  extremities,  which  opens  near 
the  head.  From  thence  arises  a  continued  to-and-fro 
movement,  which  sends  the  blood  from  the  head  to  the 
tail,  and  brings  it  back  again  from  the  tail  to  the  head. 
But  who  would  recognise,  in  this  simple  primitive  organ- 
isation, where  all  seems  to  go  on  of  its  own  accord,  as  it 
were,  the  same  machine,  with  all  its  complicated  move- 
ments, that  we  have  been  so  long  considering  ? 

Well,  in  this  apparently  universal  shipwreck  of  all 
the  organs  we  know  so  well,  there  is  yet  one  which  sur- 
vives, and  remains  the  same  as  ever,  namely,  the  digest- 
ive tube.  I  began  by  saying  the  insect  is  a  bird.  His 
digestive  tube  is  formed  upon  the  same  pattern  as  that 
of  birds,  so  that  naturalists  have  bestowed  the  same 
names  on  the  various  parts  in  each  of  them.  After  the 
oesophagus  comes  a  crop  (jabot),  very  distinctly  indi- 
cated ;  then  a  gizzard  with  thick  coats,  in  which  the 
food  is  ground  down.  The  hen,  if  you  remember,  swal- 


INSECTA.  351 

lows  small  pebbles,  which  perform  in  her  gizzard  the 
office  of  the  teeth  in  our  mouths.  The  cockchafer  has 
no  need  to  swallow  anything.  His  gizzard  is  furnished 
with  little  pieces  of  horn;  real  teeth,  fixed  in  their 
places,  which  have  a  great  advantage  over  the  chance 
teeth  picked  up  at  random  by  the  hen.  I  pointed  out  to 
you  in  birds,  between  the  crop  and  the  gizzard,  a  swell- 
ing or  enlargement  of  the  digestive  tube,  pitted  with 
small  holes,  where  the  food  is  moistened  by  juices.  The 
same  .enlargement  is  found  here,  covered  all  over  with  a 
multitude  of  small  tubes,  which  might  easily  be  mistaken 
for  hairs,  from  which  also  falls  a  perfect  shower  of  juices. 
The  only  difference  is,  that  it  comes  after  the  gizzard, 
instead  of  before  it,  as  in  birds.  Some  naturalists,  con- 
sidering that  the  manufacture  of  chyle  takes  place  here, 
have  called  it  the  chylific  ventricle  ;  *  a  somewhat  bar- 
barous name,  but  one  which  explains  itself,  and  might 
with  truth  be  applied  to  the  duodenum  of  the  higher 
animals.  Bile  is  poured  in  close  to  the  hinder  end  of.it, 
but  you  must  not  look  for  the  liver  ;  it  has  disappeared, 
or  rather  its  form  is  entirely  changed.  You  remember 
what  the  pancreas  had  become  in  fishes  ;  i.e.  a  row  of 
tubes  giving  out  a  salivary  fluid.  Such  is  exactly  the 
appearance  of  the  liver  in  the  cockchafer. 

Instead  of  that  fleshy  substance  on  which  hitherto 
the  office  of  preparing  the  bile  had  devolved,  you  see 
nothing  but  a  floating  bundle  of  long  loose  tubes,  which, 
opening  into  the  intestines,  pour  in  their  bile.  The 
organ  is  transformed,  but  we  recognise  it  again  by  the 

*  The  corresponding  protuberance  of  the  birds  bears  a  name, 
somewhat  similar,  but  still  more  barbarous.  I  had  passed  it  over  in 
silence,  because,  I  make  the  confession  in  all  humility,  I  do  not  un- 
derstand it ;  but  a  remorse  now  seizes  me :  it  is  called  the  Ventricule 
succenturie. 


352  INSECTA. 

office  it  performs,  which  continues  the  same.  As  to  the 
pancreas,  it  is  wanting  here,  as  in  the  fish  with  salivary 
glands ;  but  in  its  place,  in  many  insects  other  tubes, 
acting  also  as  glands,  pour  saliva  into  the  pharynx  • 
i.  e.j  the  cavity  at  the  back  of  tne  throat. 

As  you  see,  -therefore,  everything  is  found  complete 
in  this  tube  of  a  few  inches  long  ;  and  you  can  also  dis- 
tinguish there  a  small  and  a  large  intestine.  We  are 
speaking  of  the  cockchafer,  which  feeds  on  the  leaves 
of  trees  ;  and  it  is  for  this  reason  I  name  some  inches 
as  the  length  of  the  digestive  tube.  This  would  not  be 
longer  than  the  body  itself,  had  it  been  destined,  as  in 
the  case  of  many  other  insects,  to  receive  animal  food. 
In  fact,  the  law  which  we  have  shown  to  exist  with  re- 
gard to  the  ox  and  the  lion,  rules  also  over  the  insect- 
world  ;  and  whilst  a  radical  change  seems  to  have  been 
made  in  the  rest  of  the  organisation,  here  everything 
is  in  its  place,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  the  same 
system. 

Was  I  not  justified  in  asserting  that  the  unity  of  the 
animal  plan  is  to  be  found  in  the  digestive  tube  ?  and 
that  this  is  the  unchanging  basis  upon  which  the  Cre- 
ator of  the  animal  world  had  raised  his  varied  construc- 
tions ? 

How  would  it  be,  then,  if  we  were  to  take  the  insect 
from  its  starting-point  when  it  is  only  a  worm,  that 
is  to  say,  merely  and  simply  a  digestive  tube  ?  for  I  am 
only  telling  you  a  small  portion  of  its  history  here  ;  a 
history  you  must  know,  which  reveals  a  miracle  still 
more  wonderful  than  the  transformation  of  the  little 
tadpole  into  the  frog !  There  is  a  brilliant-colored  fly 
which  comes  buzzing  about  the  meat-safe — the  blue- 
bottle— do  you  know  her  ?  It  is  on  her  account  that 
we  put  large  covers  of  iron  wire  over  the  dishes  of 


INSECTA.  353 

meat ;   but,  perhaps,  you  never  troubled  yourself  to 
think  why. 

But  the  truth  is,  she  only  comes  there  to  deposit  her 
eggs  in  the  good  roast-meat ;  and  if  she  could  get  near 
enough  to  do  so,  you  would  soon  afterwards  see  it 
swarming  with  little  white  worms,  which  would  entirely 
take  away  all  your  appetite.  These  worms  are  only 
flies  out  at  nurse,  and  they  will  find  their  wings  by-and- 
by  if  you  only  give  them  time  enough.  Disgusting  as 
they  may  appear  on  a  dining-table,  I  assure  you  they 
deserve  more  interest  than  you  may  think.  When  we 
come  to  speak  of  worms,  we  will  ask  of  them  to  let  out 
the  secret  of  the  mysterious  transformations  of  animals. 

In  the  meantime,  let  us  finish  the  observations  we 
were  making  on  the  perfect  insect,  as  this  little  creature 
is  called  when  he  has  passed  through  the  intermediate 
stages  which  separate  him  from  the  undeveloped  condi- 
tion. Forgive  me,  my  dear  child,  here  I  am  speaking  to 
you  as  if  you  were  a  grown-up  woman !  This  is  because 
it  is  so  difficult  to  explain  things  of  this  sort  in  any 
other  way.  And  now  that  you  have  been  introduced 
into  the  midst  of  the  wonders  of  creation,  you  ought  to 
familiarise  yourself  with  the  ideas  and  terms  they  have 
suggested  to  mankind.  I  began  with  you  as  a  child, 
and  great  would  be  my  triumph  if  I  could  leave  you  a 
grown-up  girl !  And  I  flatter  myself  that  I  have  so  far. 
set  your  brain  to  work,  under  pretence  of  amusing  you, 
that  this  hope  is  not  altogether  unfounded.  I  found  it 
necessary  to  say  this  to  you  in  confidence,  because  I 
have  just  read  over  our  first  conversations,  and  perceive 
that  I  have  insensibly  put  you  on  a  different  diet  from 
the  one  I  began  with.  I  am  obliged  to  comfort  myself 
by  remembering  that  you  have  grown  older  since,  and 
that  you  are  now  acquainted  with  a  great  many  things 


354  INSECTA. 

which  you  had  never  heard  spoken  of  then.  And  this 
is  the  secret  of  all  transformations.  We  crept  on  at 
first  over  ground  that  was  quite  unknown  to  us  ;  but  as 
we  went  along,  our  wings  must  have  begun  to  grow,  and 
we  are  now  able  to  fly  a  little ! 

Do  not  be  afraid,  however  ;  I  will  exercise  your  tiny 
butterfly-wings  very  carefully  just  at  present.  "We  have 
only  to  examine  what  becomes  of  the  chyle  of  the  cock- 
chafer after  it  has  been  prepared  in  the  pretty  little  tube 
so  finely  wrought.  We  men  have  chyliferous  vessels 
which  draw  up  chyle  from  the  intestines  and  throw  it 
within  a  short  distance  of  the  heart,  into  the  torrent  of 
blood,  where  its  education  is  completed.  But  the  cock- 
chafer, who  has  no  other  vessels  than  his  air-pipes,  and 
the  dorsal  tube,  which  has  no  communication  with  the 
intestines,  what  is  he  to  do  ?  Do  not  distress  yourself 
about  him.  Make  a  tube  of  a  bit  of  linen,  well  sewn 
together,  and  fill  it  with  water.  Sew  it  together  as 
firmly  as  you  may  on  all  sides,  the  water  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  escaping  through  the  meshes.  And  this  is 
just  what  happens  with  the  little  tubes  found  in  ani- 
mals, the  coats  of  which  are  formed  of  interwoven  fibres. 
By-the-by,  from  thence  comes  their  name  of  "  tissue" 
which  they  share  in  common  with  all  the  solid  substances 
of  the  body,  for  all  were  once  supposed  to  have  the 
same  general  structure.  The  intestine  of  the  cockchafer 
floats,  did  I  not  say  ?  in  the  lake  of  blood  which  fills 
the  whole  cavity  of  the  body.  Well,  then,  the  chyle  has 
only  to  penetrate  through  these  coats,  to  go  where  it  is 
wanted.  Hence  it  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  this 
blood  should  be  white  ;  and  I  have  very  good  reasons 
just  now  for  comparing  it  to  our  chyle.  It  is,  indeed, 
chyle  arriving  directly  from  the  place  of  its  manufac- 
ture, without  undergoing  any  other  process  ;  by  which 


INSECTA.  355 

you  may  see  that  this  little  machine  (of  the  digestive 
organs  of  the  cockchafer),  though  differing  in  appear- 
ance so  entirely  from  our  own,  is  reducible  to  the  same 
elements  of  construction,  and  that  life  is  maintained  by 
the  same  process  as  with  us  ;  namely,  by  the  action  of 
the  air  upon  the  albumen  extracted  from  food.  The 
cockchafer,  it  is  true,  is  much  further  removed  from  being 
a  fellow-creature  of  ours  than  even  the  horse  ;  but  the 
principle  of  life  is  the  same  with  him  as  with  us.  And 
this  is  quite  enough  to  cause  children,  who  can  feel  and 
reason,  to  think  twice  before  they  begin  to  torture,  by 
way  of  amusement,  a  creature  whose  life  the  God  of 
goodness  has  subjected  to  the  same  conditions  as  our 
own.  I  speak  this  to  those  miserable  little  executioners 
who  make  toys  of  suffering  animals  :  but  the  case  is  dif- 
ferent with  agriculturists,  who  have  necessarily  to  con- 
tend with  the  devourers  of  their  harvests,  and  whom,  I 
admit,  it  would  not  be  reasonable  to  bind  down  by  the 
maxim  of  Uncle  Toby.* 

But  now  to  finish  with  the  cockchafer.  We  have  got 
to  examine  one  very  important  part  of  his  body,  that 
which  in  other  animals  has  been  the  one  most  talked 


*  I  have  introduced  my  Uncle  Toby,  who  really  has  nothing  to 
do  here,  in  order  to  make  you  acquainted  with  a  few  lines  of  Sterne, 
which  I  wish  I  could  place  before  the  eyes  of  every  child  in  the 
world. 

"  Go !"  said  he,  one  day  at  table,  to  an  enormous  fly  which  had 
been  buzzing  around  his  nose  and  had  cruelly  tormented  him  all 
dinner  time.  After  many  attempts,  he  finally  caught  him  in  his 
hand.  "  Go !  I  will  not  do  thee  any  harm,"  said  my  Uncle  Toby, 
rising  and  crossing  the  room  with  the  fly  in  his  hand ;  "  I  would 
not  hurt  a  hair  of  your  head.  Go !"  said  he,  opening  the  window 
and  his  hand  at  the  same  moment,  to  let  the  fly  escape ;  "  go,  poor 
little  devil ;  away  with  you ;  why  should  I  do  you  any  harm  ?  the 
world  is  certainly  large  enough  to  contain  both  of  us !" 

X^^5^ 
fi>  o»  -"-* 


356  INSECTA. 

about  ever  since  we  began  our  study  :  I  mean  the  mouth. 
You  know  that  this  is  the  essentially  variable  point  in 
the  digestive  tube ;  so  that  you  will  not  be  much  sur- 
prised, should  we  find  he  has  something  altogether  new. 
The  mouth  of  the  cockchafer  is  composed  of  a  great 
number  of  small  pieces  placed  externally  round  the 
entrance  to  the  alimentary  canal  •  but  the  names  of 
these,  as  they  would  not  interest  you,  I  will  not  enter 
upon  with  you ;  more  especially  as  they  refer  to  such 
tiny  morsels,  that  you  would  have  great  .difficulty  in 
finding  them  again  on  the  owner.  Of  these  pieces  only 
two  are  worth  our  attention.  These  are  two  bits  of 
extremely  hard  horn,  placed  one  on  each  side  of  the  ani- 
mal, which  are  called  " mandibles"  and  which  serve  the 
cockchafer  to  cut  up  the  leaves  which  he  eats.  Fancy 
your  share  of  teeth  being  two  huge  things  fixed  in  the 
two  corners  of  your  mouth,  each  advancing  alone  against 
the  other  till  they  meet  under  the  nose !  You  would 
then  attack  your  tarts  with  the  weapons  of  the  cock- 
chafer !  You  would  not,  however,  be  able  to  bite  them 
straight  through  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  as  is  done 
by  all  the  animals  whom  we  have  yet  seen.  It  is  this 
which  so  peculiarly  distinguishes  the  insect's  manner  of 
feeding  ;  for  we  have  already  been  taught  by  the  bird 
and  the  tortoise,  that  it  is  possible  to  eat  with  two 
pieces  of  horn.  The  cockchafer  now  shows  us  how  to 
eat  sideways  ;  but  this  is  merely  an  accessory  detail. 
It  does  not  affect  what  happens  after  the  mouthful  is 
swallowed.  All  insects,  however,  have  not  this  peculi- 
arity. The  cockchafer  belongs  to  the  category  of  grind- 
ing insects  as  they  are  called,  who  bite  their  food  :  but 
there  is  the  category  of  the  sucking  insects  (or  suckers), 
whose  food  consists  of  liquids  ;  and  these  insects  are 
furnished  in  a  different  manner. 


INSECTA.  357 

In  the  innocent  butterfly,  who  lives  on  the  juice  of 
flowers,  the  digestive  tube  terminates  externally  in  a  sort 
of  trunk,  twisted  in  several  convolutions,  which  is  nothing 
more  than  an  exaggerated  elongation  <of  the  two  jaws, 
which  become  hollow  within,  and  form  a  tube  when 
joined  together.  When  the  insect  alights  on  a  flower, 
he  suddenly  unrolls  this  trunk,  and  sucks  in  the  juices 
from  the  depth  of  its  "  corolla,"  as  you  would  drink  up 
liquid  with  a  straw  from  the  bottom  of  a  small  vial. 
Amuse  yourself  some  summer's  day  by  watching  a  but- 
terfly in  his  labors  amongst  the  flowers  :  sometimes  he 
stops  still,  but  oftener  he  is  contented  to  hover  over 
them ;  and,  as  he  does  so,  you  will  see  a  little  loose 
thread,  as  it  were,  move  backwards  and  forwards  as  fast 
as  possible  :  this  is  his  trunk,  which  he  darts  out,  while 
flying,  into  the  corolla  of  the  flowers,  but  which  scarcely 
seems  to  touch  them,  so  delicate  is  its  approach. 

Less  inoffensive  far  is  the  trunk  of  the  mosquito-gnat, 
and  of  all  the  detestable  troop  of  blood-sucking  flies.  It 
is  always  a  tube ;  but  this  tube  is  no  longer  a  simple 
straw,  but  a  sheath  furnished  with  stilettos  of  such  ex- 
quisite delicacy  and  temper,  that  nothing  is  comparable 
to  them  ;  and  these,  as  they  play  up  and  down,  pierce 
the  skin  of  the  victim,  like  the  lancets  of  the  lamprey, 
and,  like  them,  draw  in  blood  as  they  retreat. 

Finally,  amongst  the  parasites,  the  last  and  lowest 
group  of  insects,  the  stiletto-sheath  is  reduced  to  the  size 
of  a  kind  of  little  tube-shaped  beak,  which,  when  not  in 
use,  folds  down  like  the  fangs  of  the  rattlesnake. 

You  do  not  know,  perhaps,  what  a  parasite  is.  The 
word  comes  from  the  Greek,  and  signifies  literally,  "  that 
which  moves  round  the  corn"  The  Greeks  applied  it  to 
those  shameless  paupers  who,  to  escape  honest  labor, 
made  their  way  into  the  houses  of  the  great,  and  enjoyed 


358  INSECTA. 

themselves  at  their  expense.  These  parasites  are  little 
animals  which  settle  themselves  on  large  ones,  to  suck 
in,  without  having  worked  for  it,  the  blood  which  the 
others  have  manufactured.  The  wolf  hunts,  fights,  and 
tears  its  victim  in  pieces  ;  and  then,  by  means  of  that 
interior  labor  which  I  have  spent  so  much  time  in  de- 
scribing, transforms  it  into  nourishing  liquid  :  and  when 
all  this  is  accomplished,  the  little  flea,  who  lives  hidden 
among  his  hairs,  coolly  draws  out  for  his  own  use  the 
valuable  blood  obtained  with  so  much  effort.  There  are 
many  parasites  in  the  world,  my  dear  child — yourself, 
for  instance,  to  begin  with — who  are  perfectly  happy  to 
chew  your  bread  without  asking  where  the  corn  comes 
from  which  made  it.  But  you  have  heart  enough  to  see 
plainly  that  this  indifference  ought,  not  to  last,  and  that 
it  is  not  honorable  to  go  on  living  in  this  indefinite  man- 
ner at  other  people's  cost  only. 

You  will  some  day  have  duties  to  fulfil,  which  you 
should  accustom  yourself  to  think  of  now,  in  order  that 
you  may  prepare  yourself  for  them  beforehand,  so  that 
it  may  never  hereafter  be  said  of  you  that  you  passed 
through  the  midst  of  human  society,  taking  from  it  all 
you  needed,  without  giving  it  back  anything  in  return. 
I  advise  you  to  conjure  up  this  idea  when  the  time  comes 
to  leave  off  playing  and  begin  preparing  to  be  of  use. 
The  sort  of  thing  is  not  always  very  amusing,  I  admit, 
but  you  must  look  upon  it  as  the  ladder  by  which  you 
will  be  enabled  to  rise  from  the  degradation  of  a  para- 
sitical life.  If  you  were  in  a  well,  and  some  one  were  to 
let  down  a  real  ladder  for  you  to  get  up  by,  I  do  not 
think  you  would  complain  of  the  difficulty  of  using  it. 
It  is  for  you,  then,  to  consider  whether  you  would  like 
to  remain  for  ever  in  your  present  condition  ;  for  those 
who  learn  nothing,  who  submit  to  nothing,  who  are  good 


INSECTA.  359 

for  nothing,  but  to  show  off  and  amuse  themselves — 
these  remain  parasites  all  their  lives  in  reality,  however 
little  they  may  sometimes  seem  to  suspect  it. 

At  your  age,  however,  there  is  still  no  disgrace  in  the 
matter.  God  shows  us  by  the  insects  that  little  things 
are  allowed  to  be  parasitical ;  but  on  this  subject  I  must 
return  to  a  point  in  the  history  of  animals  which  I 
touched  upon  before.  I  told  you,  in  speaking  of  the 
crocodile,  that  the  perfect  state  of  the  inferior  animals 
is  found  represented  in  the  infancy  or  less  perfect  state 
of  those  above  them :  and  I  may  say  the  same  again 
with  regard  to  insects.  All  the  young  of  the  mammalia 
begin  life  as  parasites,  at  least,  as  sucking  animals  :  for 
they  all  live  at  first  on  their  mother's  milk,  which  is 
nothing  more  than  blood  in  a  peculiar  state.  But  the 
name  of  parasite  among  insects  is  generally  confined  to 
those  which  take  up  their  abode  on  the  bodies  of  their 
hosts  ;  though  in  common  justice  it  might  equally  well 
be  applied  to  the  gnat  and  his  relations,  who,  when  once 
full,  make  their  bow  and  are  off,  like  the  kitten  when 
he  has  finished  sucking.  Well,  without  meaning  to  find 
fault,  if  we  descend  to  the  lower  ranks  of  the  mammals, 
we  shall  find  among  them  many  parasites  in  the  received 
sense  of  the  word.  You  remember  the  pouch  to  which 
the  marsupials  owe  their  odd  name.  The  young  kanga- 
roo remains  hidden  for  months  in  the  pouch  of  its  mother, 
feeding  continually  all  the  time  ;  and  it  is  then  a  strict 
parasite.  During  the  four  following  months  it  goes  in 
and  out,  and  strolls  about  between  meals,  like  othei 
young  ones  of  its  class,  and  is  then  an  animal  at  nurse 
affording  thus  a  twofold  example  of  the  tendency  of  the 
great  Creator  to  repeat  Himself  in  His  conceptions, 
here  using  for  the  infancy  of  the  mammal  the  system  in- 
vented for  adult  insects — elsewhere  repeating  the  but- 


360  INSECTA. 

terfly  in  the  humming-bird,  who  may  fairly  be  called  a 
vertebrated  butterfly,  and  reproducing  the  gnat  in  the 
vampire-bat,  which  I  look  upon  as  an  enlarged  and  per- 
fected revise  of  the  original  pattern,  whence  comes  the 
scourge  of  our  sweet  summer  nights. 

And  now,  surely,  I  have  said  enough  about  these 
parasites,  whose  very  name,  I  suspect,  will  make  you 
shudder  after  my  impertinent  application  of  it.  Never 
mind :  it  depends  entirely  upon  yourself  to  get  rid  of 
whatever  you  find  humiliating  in  the  position  I  have 
hinted  at.  Do  all  you  can  to  bring  happiness  to  the 
parents  on  wjiom  you  live  at  present,  and  who  give  their 
life-blood  so  willingly  for  your  good.  God  has  made  you 
very  different  from  those  little  animals  who  have  neither 
heart  nor  reason  to  guide  them.  Do  not  be  like  them, 
then,  in  conduct.  By  a  little  obedience  and  love — child 
as  you  are — you  can  pay  them  back  what  you  owe,  and 
they  will  never  complain  of  the  bargain. 


LETTER    XXXVIII. 

CRUSTACEA — MOLLUSCA.     (Crustaceans  and  Mollusks.) 
Crustaceans. 

CRUSTACEANS  consist  of  cray-fish,  crabs,  lobsters,  and 
prawns,  who  may  be  considered  cousins-german  of  insects, 
among  which  more  than  one  naturalist  has  thought  they 
ought  to  be  placed.  Like  them  they  are  divided  into 
grinders ,  having  the  same  action  of  the  mandibles  ;  and 
suckers,  who  are  also  parasites,  and  have  tubular  sheaths 
containing  stilettos.  Mammals  and  birds  are  the  vic- 
tims of  parasitical  insects  ;  fishes  have  been  reserved  for 
the  crustaceans,  who  do  not  disdain  also  to  fasten  upon 
their  humble  neighbors,  the  mollusks  ;  and  even  among 
themselves  the  little  ones  settle  down  on  the  great.  A 
few  live  on  land,  but  an  immense  majority  in  water,  and 
seem  destined  to  represent,  in  the  aquatic  world,  the 
aerial  class  of  insects,  from  whom,  however,  they  differ 
in  many  ways. 

The  first  difference  is  in  that  stony  crust  with  which 
they  are  enveloped,  like  the  cockchafer  in  his  horny 
cuirass,  and  which  you  must  know  well  enough  if  you 
have  ever  eaten  lobster.  Wherever  we  meet  with  horn  in 
insects,  we  find  stone  in  crustaceans.  The  jaws  are 
stony,  and  the  teeth  of  the  stomach  also.  They  are  con- 
structed on  the  same  plan,  only  the  materials  are 
changed. 

16  (361) 


362  CRUSTACEANS. 

The  digestive  tube  is  less  complicated,  and  consists 
merely  of  one  large  stomach,  instead  of  that  series  of 
ctomachs  by  which  insects  approach  the  organisation  of 
birds.  On  the  other  hand,  if  among  some  of  them  the 
liver  is  reduced  to  simple  tubes,  floating  loosely  in  the 
body,  as  we  have  just  seen  it  in  the  cockchafer  among 
insects,  these  tubes  are  generally  so  profusely  multiplied, 
and  press  so  closely  against  each  other,  that  they  form  a 
large  compact  lump — a  true  liver,  to  sum  up  all — from 
which  issues,  as  from  ours,  a  choledochian  canal,  a  bile- 
duct,  i.  e.,  which  passes  out  into  the  intestine  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  pylorus. 

You  recollect  that  canal  of  the  liver  which  I  was 
afraid  to  tell  you  the  name  of  because  it  was  so  ugly  ? 
Well,  this  is  that  formidable  name  !  Now  that  you  have 
swallowed  so  many  others,  you  must  be  strong  enough  to 
digest  this. 

No  chyliferous  vessels  have  been  found  in  crustaceans, 
whence  one  may  conclude  that  the  chyle  leaves  the  intes- 
tine by  oozing  from  it,  just  as  it  does  in  insects.  There 
it  gives  rise  to  an  almost  transparent  sort  of  blood,  a 
kind  of  sap,  or  lymph,  which  is  put  in  motion  by  a 
genuine  circulation-apparatus  ;  a  real  heart,  with  all  its 
canals.  This  heart  has  only  one  ventricle,  and  only 
sends  blood  in  one  direction,  as  in  the  case  of  fishes  ; 
but  there  is  an  essential  difference  between  them,  which 
we  must  point  out.  The  heart  of  fishes  may  be  called  a 
venous  heart,  since  it  only  receives  venous  blood,  which 
passes  thence  to  the  gills,  while  that  of  crustaceans  is  an 
arterial  heart.  It  receives  the  blood  directly  it  leaves 
the  respiratory  organ,  and  sends  it,  not  into  one  aorta, 
but  into  several  arteries,  which  set  out  at  once,  each  in 
its  own  direction,  to  nourish  the  various  quarters  of  the 
body.  This  greatly  resembles  the  system  of  circulation, 


CRUSTACEANS.  363 

with  which  we  arc  already  acquainted.  The  veins  only 
are  unsatisfactory.  They  form  a  kind  of  transition  be- 
tween the  uncertain  currents  which  convey  the  blood  of 
insects  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  cavity  in  which 
these  strange  organs  lie  bathed,  and  the  closed  canals  of 
the  higher  animals.  But  they  are  not  canals,  properly 
speaking.  The  irregular  intervals  which  separate  the 
organs,  more  numerous  here,  are  enclosed  by  membranes, 
between  which  the  venous  blood  pours,  and  naturally  the 
chyle  also.  The  whole  thus  arrives  at  certain  excava- 
tions formed  at  the  place  where  the  legs  are  jointed  on 
to  the  body — reservoirs,  so  to  speak — where  the  real 
canals  come  to  carry  it  off  and  convey  it  away  into  the 
gills. 

It  is,  in  fact,  by  means  of  gills  that  crustaceans  breathe 
in  their  character  of  aquatic  animals.  These  gills  are 
made,  nearly  upon  the  same  model  as  we  have  already 
seen  in  those  of  fishes  ;  and  although  their  form  and 
arrangement  differ  in  different  species,  yctx  the  principle 
is  always  the  same  :  they  are  tufts  of  leaflets  springing 
from  stems,  up  and  down  which  run  two  tubes  ;  one 
which  brings  the  blood  from  the  venous  reservoirs,  the 
other  which  carries  it  to  the  heart.  Crabs,  lobsters,  and 
crayfish,  who  are  the  "  file-leaders  "  of  the  crustacean 
tribe,  have  gills  enclosed  in  the  body,  as  fishes  have  ;  but 
the  circulation  of  the  water  goes  in  a  contrary  direction 
to  theirs,  as  does  that  of  the  blood.  Instead  of  entering 
at  the  mouth  and  going  out  at  the  sides,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  enters  at  the  edge  of  the  bony  shell  which  covers  over 
the  body  and  comes  out  near  the  mouth — a  merely  acci- 
dental detail  which  does  not  in  any  way  alter  the  play 
of  the  apparatus.  All  these  animals  are  equally  adapted 
for  swimming  and  for  walking,  crabs  especially,  their 
gills  accommodating  themselves  without  difficulty  to 


364  CRUSTACEANS. 

contact  with  the  outer  air,  as  we  have  seen  among  cer- 
tain fishes  ;  so  that  one  might  class  them  with  amphibi- 
ans. There  is  even  one  crab  who  has  acquired  the  name 
of  land-crab,  because,  although  he  has  got  gills,  he  dies  in 
water,  the  small  amount  of  air  he  can  get  out  of  it  at  a 
time  being  insufficient  for  him,  and  who,  therefore,  lives 
constantly  on  land.  It  is  true  that  he  seeks  out  damp 
spots,  for  his  gills  would  also  fail  him  if  they  became 
parched,  and,  like  the  fishes  who  make  excursions  on  dry 
land,  he  is  provided  with  an  internal  reservoir,  which  is 
always  filled  with  a  certain  quantity  of  water. 

Some  aquatic  crustaceans  have  the  labor  simplified  by 
external  gills,  which  hang  down  into  the  water,  some- 
times depending  from  the  stomach,  sometimes  from  the 
legs.  In  France  you  sometimes  see  at  a  table  certain  lit- 
tle animals,  very  like  shrimps  (squillce),  the  bases  of 
whose  hinder  legs  are  fringed  by  slender  tufts,  which 
are  in  fact  their  gills.  They  find  themselves  placed 
there  just  within  reach  of  the  venous  blood  ;  for  in  the 
body  opposite  the  bases  of  the  legs  are  little  cavities  in 
which  it  accumulates.  Now  these  gills  can  only  act 
when  under  water,  and  so  the  squilla  dies  as  soon  as  he 
is  removed  from  that  protecting  element.  For  the  same 
reason  they  cannot  be  kept  long,  nor  travel  far,  much  to 
the  regret  of  those  who  like  them  and  live  at  some  dis- 
tance from  the  sea. 

There  are  other  crustaceans,  next-door  neighbors  of 
the  squilla,  whose  gills  are  still  more  simplified.  Here 
the  legs  themselves  are  turned  into  extremely  thin  plates, 
which  play  the  part  of  gills,  and  are  thus  organs  for  two 
purposes,  serving  at  the  same  time  10  swim  and  breathe 
with. 

We  have  in  our  house  one  little  crustacean,  the  only 
one  I  know  of  who  associates  with  men,  and  that  is  the 


CRUSTACEANS.  365 

wood-louse.  You  must  know  the  little  grizzly  beast, 
which  rolls  itself  up  into  a  ball  whenever  it  thinks  itself 
in  danger,  and  who  would  be  taken  for  an  insect  by  any- 
one who  was  not  taught  otherwise.  The  wood-louse  has 
neither  gills  hanging  down*  outside,  nor  anything  inside 
her  body  which  resembles  the  breathing  apparatus  of 
her  great  relations.  But,  on  examining  her  closely,  you 
will  perceive  all  along  her  stomach  a  series  of  little 
plates,  which  are  her  breathing-organs,  and  which  come 
under  the  class  of  gills,  because,  like  other  gills,  they 
require  a  certain  degree  of  moisture  to  make  them  act 
properly.  You  will  never,  therefore,  see  a  wood-louse 
strutting  about  in  the  sunshine,  where  he  would  dry  up 
far  too  quickly  ;  but  if  ever  you  get  into  a  dark,  damp 
corner,  there  you  have  every  chance  of  finding  one. 

Animals  who  breathe  through  their  legs  and  through 
their  stomachs!  You  are  astonished,  and  ask,  What  are 
we  coming  to  ?  What  would  you  say,  then,  if  I  were  to 
go  really  to  the  depths  of  the  crustacean  world  ?  We 
should  find  there  such  extraordinary  beings  as  you  can 
form  no  notion  of,  for  they  all  live  down  below  in  the 
sea,  and  have  no  special  breathing-organ  at  all,  inasmuch 
as  they  breathe  through  the  whole  surface  of  the  body. 
Do  not  exclaim  yet !  I  will  soon  show  you  one  whom 
you  know  perfectly  well,  and  who  has  no  other  way  of 
breathing. 

But  we  must  keep  to  the  higher  crustaceans,  if  we 
want  to  judge  of  the  class.  By  goin'g  too  low,  we  run 
the  risk  of  not  seeing  clearly.  Animal  creation  is  here 
on  a  system  of  experiments  :  and  they  are  so  endlessly 
multiplied,  and  exhibit  such  a  profusion  both  of  decep- 
tive resemblances,  and  of  differences  which  disappear 
by  transformations,  that  classification  no  longer  knows 
which  way  to  turn.  Worms,  crustaceans,  mollusks  ;  to 


366  CRUSTACEANS. 

which  group  do  these  and  those  belong  ?  To  which- 
ever we  like  to  refer  them,  for  these  groups  represent 
nothing  definitely  determined  in  the  plan  of  creation  ; 
and  though  easy  to  be  distinguished  from  each  other  in 
the  higher  branches,  they  become  confused  together  in 
the  lower,  like  mountain  summits  which  spring  from  a 
common  base,  at  the  foot  of  which  they  .are  all  united 
together. 

On  this  account,  my  dear  child,  you  will,  I  am  sure, 
excuse  me  now  and  henceforth,  from  entering  into  details 
of  all  the  horrible  beasts  which  swarm  in  the  shallows  of 
the  animal  world,  and  whom  learned  men  have  in  their 
wonderful  wisdom  muffled  up  in  terrible  names,  in  order  to 
prevent  children  from  coming  near  them  !  What  would 
you  have  thought  of  the  poor  little  squilla,  so  prettily 
baptised  by  the  fishermen,  if  I  had  taught  you  that  it 
belonged  to  the  order  of  Stomatopodal  You  will 
scarcely  be  able  to  pronounce  the  word  ;  but  that  is  no 
fault  of  mine,  it  is  spelt  so. 

We  will  content  ourselves,  then,  with  having  taken  a 
glance  at  the  most  clearly  marked  individuals  ;  and  as  I 
said  to  you  just  now,  it  is  by  them  that  we  will  arrange 
our  inventory  of  the  groups.  Here,  as  you  may  have 
already  remarked,  instead  of  continuing  to  wander  from 
the  original  model  whose  gradual  deterioration  we  have 
been  following  all  this  time  from  one  class  to  another, 
it  would  seem  that  we  are  retracing  our  steps,  and 
regaining  some  portion  of  the  lost  ground.  This  is  be- 
cause insects,  as  I  have  already  stated,  are  an  exceptional 
case — an  idea  apart  from  the  great  general  plan — a  by- 
lane  turning  off  from  one  side  of  the  great  line  of  ani- 
mal creation. 

The  crustacean,  less  perfectly  worked  out  than  the  in- 
sect assuredly,  but  more  regular,  forms,  so  to  speak,  the 


MOLLUSKS.  367 

connecting  line  between  that  tiny  masterpiece  of  fancy, 
so  incomplete  in  its  exquisite  o'rganisation,  and  the  shape- 
less but  better  constituted  lump  of  the  mollusk,  who 
conceals  under  his  heavy  shell  the  sacred  deposit  of  real 
organs,  those  which  we  expect  to  find  always  and  every- 
where. An  insect  outside,  though  less  refined  it  is  true, 
a  mollusk  within,  the  crustacean  reminds  me  of  what 
among  us  is  called  an  amateur — that  mild  lover  of  the 
arts  who  holds  a  middle  place,  as  it  were,  between  the 
artist  and  the  common  citizen. 

I  regret  that  you  are  not  at  present  quite  able  to  ap- 
preciate my  comparison  fully  :  but  put  it  by,  in  reserve, 
if  possible,  in  your  memory  ;  you  will  find  out  hereaftei 
how  just  it  is,  and  it  will,  perhaps,  help  to  prevent  you 
from  always  setting  the  lively,  noisy  artist,  above  the 
quiet  and  silent  citizen.  Let  this,  however,  be  between 
you  and  me.  If  they  could  hear  us  talking,  neither 
artist  nor  citizen  would  forgive  me,  and  the  amateur 
still  less. 

Mollusks. 

There  is  one  mollusk  universally  well  known — namely, 
the  oyster — so  we  will  choose  him  for  discussion.  To 
look  on  one's  plate  at  that  little  mass  of  soft,  compact 
substance,  one  feels  inclined  to  ask  what  there  can  pos- 
sibly be  in  common  between  it  and  us  ;  and  if  you  were 
to  declare  that  there  was  not  the  faintest  trace  of  re- 
semblance between  the  organization  of  the  oyster  and 
our  own,  I  should  not  be  surprised.  Wiser  people  than 
you  have  been  caught  tripping  there ;  not  that  they 
were  ignorant  of  the  points  in  which  the  oyster  resemb- 
led us,  but  they  paid  no  attention  to  them.  Viewing  it 
in  other  respects,  they  declared  that  it  was  of  a  structure 
completely  different  to  our  own ;  and  that,  in  the  con- 


368         .  MOLLUSKS. 

struction  of  this  machine,  the  Creator  had  worked  upon 
a  particular  plan,  laid  aside  afterwards  as  useless  for 
any  other  purpose. 

I  should  like  to  get  hold  of  one  of  those  Academi- 
cians, with  thirty-six  plans,  and  confound  him  before 
you,  in  proof  of  his  relationship  to  the  oyster,  by  show-' 
ing  you  at  one  sitting  that  there  is  an  oyster  in  himself ; 
nay,  further,  that  he  is  nothing  but  an  oyster,  revised, 
amended,  and  considerably  enlarged.  And  do  not  im- 
agine that  I  am  only  using  a  figure  of  speech  here,  as  the 
professors  of  rhetoric  call  it ;  which  would  be  in  bad 
taste  :  I  am  speaking  literally,  and  to  prove  the  existence 
of  the  oyster  in  question  in  our  Academician,  I  shall  only 
ask  permission  to  perform  a  slight  operation  upon  him. 
You  exclaim  at  this ;  but  do  not  alarm  yourself,  for  it  is 
only  an  operation  on  paper,  he  will  not  die  from  it.  See 
now,  I  cut  off  his  head,  his  two  arms,  and  his  legs  ;  I 
take  out  of  his  body  the  vertebral  column  and  the  ribs  ; 
I  gently  place  what  remains  between  two  shells ;  and 
....  there  is  my  oyster.  I  willingly  admit  that  it  is 
more  carefully  elaborated  and  richer  in  details  than  its 
sisters  in  the  oyster  beds  ;  but  all  the  principal  organs 
are  to  be  found  in  them  also,  and  they  positively  are 
beings  of  a  similar  construction :  you  shall  judge  for 
yourself. 

The  mouth — for  there  is  a  mouth,  though  one  must 
look  closer  than  the  oysterrnen  do  to  discover  it — the 
mouth  is  exactly  what  the  gullet  (ossophagus)  would  be 
in  a  man  whose  head  had  been  cut  off ;  that  is,  a  trun- 
cated tube.  Then  comes  the  stomach,  situated  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  liver  ;  which  latter  may  easily  be  dis- 
tinguished, even  by  the  most  cursory  glance  at  luncheon, 
from  its  dark  color.  The  intestine  also  goes  right 
through  the  livir,  doubling  backwards  and  forwards 


MOLLUSKS.  369 

several  times  :  and  thus  the  digestive  tube  supplies  itself 
with  bile  from  the  cask  (to  borrow  a  commercial  expres- 
sion); and  this  saves  the  expense  of  a' bile-duct  (choledo- 
chian  canal),  which  would  be  an  unnecessary  mode  of 
conveyance  in  this  case.  The  animal  lives  in  water ; 
consequently,  instead  of  lungs  he  has  gills  :  *  these  are 
those  thin,  finely-streaked  plates  which  make  a  fringe  at 
the  very  edge  of  the  shell.  Finally,  on  leaving  the  gills 
the  blood  is  received  by  an  arterial  heart,  with  only  one 
ventricle  like  that  of  the  crustaceans,  in  the  shape  of 
a  small  pear,  similar  to  ours,  having  an  auricle,  and 
an  aorta,  branching  out  so  as  to  distribute  the  blood 
throughout  the  whole  body.  And  now  what  do  we  find 
here,  let  me  ask  you,  in  this  mutilated  man,  reduced  to 
the  soft  portions  of  the  trunk,  whom  I  have  been  imagin- 
ing ?  A  heart,  with  its  arteries  ;  lungs ;  a  liver ;  an 
intestine  ;  a  stomach  and  an  esophagus  :  that  is  to  say, 
merely  and  simply  the  organs  of  nutrition.  That  is  all, 
or  very  nearly  so. 

As  you  perceive,  then,  all  the  elements  of  our  own 
feeding-machine  lie  between  the  two  shells  of  a  mollusk  ; 
in  a  rough  state  as  yet,  it  is  true  ;  incomplete,  and  un- 
ruly ;  as  in  the  case  of  the  intestine,  for  instance,  which 
in  many  of  these  creatures  passes  without  ceremony 
through  the  heart :  but  even  so  they  are  quite  sufficiently 
indicated  to  prevent  their  being  mistaken.  Now  this 
machine,  it  is  in  vain  to  deny  it,  is  the  animal  itself ;  by 
it  it  lives  at  first,  and  it  is  this  which  dies  in  it  last.  The 
other  matter  (the  locomotive  power),  important  as  it  may 
seem  to  us  in  higher  races,  only  holds  a  secondary  position 
in  reality :  the  proof  of  which  is,  that  here  is  an  animal 
reduced  absolutely  to  a  mere  feeding-machine,  who  still 

*  The  land-snail  has  lungs. 

16* 


370  MOLLUSKS. 

lives,  whilst  there  yet  remains  to  be  found  one  who  has 
nothing  left  but  his  movement-machine,  and  who  can  yet 
exist.  •  We  cannot  disown  this  primitive  animal,  for  we 
have  it  within  ourselves  ;  lost,  so  to  speak,  in  the  midst 
of  the  accessory  organs  which  are  successively  added  to 
it  in  proportion  as  we  rise  in  the  animal  scale,  but  still 
preserving  its  own  life,  its  personality,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression.  Listen  to  this,  for  here  is  a  history  well 
worth  hearing. 

I  will  explain  to  you,  hereafter,  how  all  the  actions 
of  the  movement-machine  are  performed  by  means  of  a 
network  of  nervous  threads  (filaments),  whose  centre  of 
impulsion  is  in  the  brain.  How  our  will  acts  upon  the 
brain,  and  gives  its  orders  to  the  muscles  through  the 
nervous  fibres,  I  will  not  offer  to  explain  :  it  is  a  fact, 
let  that  suffice  us.  You  say  to  your  foot,  "  Forward  I" 
and  off  it  starts  ;  "  Halt  I"  and  it  stops.  Here  is  an  or- 
gan under  command,  a  servant  of  the  brain,  where  we 
rule  ourselves  :  with  or  without  explanation,  no  one  will 
ever  dispute  this.  The  oyster,  who  has  neither  head  nor 
brain,  has,  as  his  only  instrument  of  action,  certain  little 
masses  of  nervous  substance  scattered  right  and  left, 
which  are  called  ganglions.  These  communicate  with 
each  other  and  with  the  organs  by  nervous  cords,  which 
are  interlaced  in  all  directions,  without  having  any  com- 
mon centre,  and  which  give  the  impetus  to  all  parts  of 
the  animal. 

Well,  the  human  oyster  presents  to  us  exactly  the  same 
nervous  organisation.  It  has  its  ganglions  and  its  nerves 
to  itself,  which  are  put  into  communication  with  the 
brain  by  some  threads  strayed  among  his  own,  but  which 
are  not  under  its  orders,  and  which  treat  with  it  on  equal 
terms.  You  remember,  perhaps,  the  little  republic  talked 
about  when  we  first  entered  the  digestive  tube ;  you 


MOLLUSKS.  371 

have  now  the  explanation  of  it.  This  republic  is  the 
original  animal ;  it  is  the  feeding-machine.  I  cannot 
describe  it,  and  the  kingdom  of  which  you  are  queen, 
better  than  by  comparing  them  to  two  States  having  di- 
plomatic relations  with  each  other,  who  exchange  dis- 
patches and  reciprocal  influences  ;  and  as  to  the  impor- 
tance of  these  respective  influences,  if  one  were  to  com- 
pare them  1  scarcely  know  to  which  side  the  balance 
could  incline. 

We  shall  return  elsewhere  to  this  detail,  one  of  the 
most  interesting  of  our  organisation,  and  which  here 
finds  its  natural  explanation.  For  the  present  I  will 
content  myself  with  reminding  you  that,  since  the  earliest 
days  of  human  civilisation,  all  philosophers,  all  poets, 
and  all  moralists,  whether  sacred  or  profane,  have  borne 
witness  to  that  double  life  within  us,  that  inward  being, 
blind  and  deaf,  whose  disordered  impulses  so  often  carry 
trouble  into  those  higher  regions  where  will  and  reason 
sit  enthroned.  Behold  him  taken  in  his  lair  at  last,  this 
mysterious  being.  I  have  just  unveiled  his  origin  to 
you.  And  here,  dear  child,  I  must  shelter  myself  behind 
a  profession  of  faith.  There  will  not  be  wanting  people 
to  tell  you  that  it  is  degrading  man  far  too  much  to  look 
so  low  for  the  sources  of  his  organisation,  and  that  this 
sentence — ike  human  oyster — which  expresses  my  idea 
so  well,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  blasphemy.  Let 
them  talk,  but  adopt  their  opinion  only  when  they  have 
proved  to  you  that  man  had  a  special  Creator,  and  that 
the  oyster  came  from  a  different  hand  from  ourselves. 
I  should  like  to  know  with  what  face  we  could  venture 
to  complain,  poor  worms  that  we  are,  because  it  has 
seemed  good  to  our  common  Father  to  carry  forward  in 
us  his  previous  creations,  and  in  what  respect  human 
dignity  would  suffer  from  this  contact  with  a  being  who, 


372  MOLLUSKS. 

like  us,  is  one  of  the  works  of  God.  That  human  pride 
may  suffer  thereby,  I  admit,  and  I  am  glad  it  should  ; 
but  if  God  has  included  all  creation  in  His  love,  we  may 
well  include  it  all  in  our  respect.  Whence  comes  our 
superiority  at  all,  but  from  the  gratuitous  gifts  of  Him 
who  has  made  us  what  we  are  ?  Is  it  to  lose  it,  then,  to 
find  ourselves  side  by  side  with  inferiors  whom  the  Divine 
benevolence  has  visited  like  ourselves?  Surely  not. 
But  enough  of  the  oyster,  who  has  never,  that  I  am 
aware  of,  heard  such  strange  discussions  sounding  in  his 
ears  before.  I  have  no  time  nor  courage  now  to  speak 
of  the  other  mollusks,  who  offer  more  or  less  the  same 
system  of  organs  which  I  have  just  described.  1  must 
hasten  on  to  the  Worms,  who  give  us  the  last  clue  to 
the  great  enigma  of  the  animal  machine. 


LETTER    XXXIX. 

VERMES— ZOOPHYTA.     ( Worms  and  Zoophytes). 
Worms. 

THE  worm  of  worms,  the  one  you  know  best,  is  the 
earthworm  :  so  he  shall  have  the  honor  of  representing 
his  group. 

He  will  not  take  much  time  to  describe.  He  is,  in 
brief,  a  tube,  open  at  both  ends,  so  as  to  allow  food  to 
come  in  and  go  out.  That  is  all. 

I  talked  to  you  before  about  the  ruminants,  those  food- 
manufacturers  who  are  employed  in  cooking  victuals  for 
the  stomach,  and  in  disengaging  albumen  from  the  coarse 
materials  among  which  it  is  apparently  lost,  so  as  to 
give  it  out  again  in  a  more  acceptable  form.  The  rumi- 
nant has  other  workmen  under  him,  whom  I  keep  in 
store  for  you  as  the  last  of  the  eaters,  and  who  prepare 
the  raw  material  for  him.  These  are  the  vegetables, 
who  seek  out  the  elements  of  albumen  in  earth,  water, 
and  air,  those  final  sources  of  all  alimentation.  The 
earthworm  also  is  a  preparer,  but  in  a  peculiar  way. 
Look  along  the  garden-walks  in  summer-time,  after 
rainy  weather  :  you  will  see  here  and  there,  little  heaps 
of  earth  moulded  into  small  sticks,  like  dough  which 
has  been  passed  through  a  tube.*  This  is  the  damp 

*  M.  MacS's  account  of  the  earthworm's  life  seems  founded  on 
the  assumption  that  it  extracts  its  nourishment  from  the  earth  itself, 

(373) 


374  WOEMS. 

soil  which  the  worm  has  passed  through  his  tube,  after 
extracting  from  it,  during  its  passage,  the  various  ele- 
ments of  fertility  he  requires  for  the  support  of  his  life. 
This  is  what  makes  him  so  particularly  fond  of  garden 
soil,  because  it  is  richer  in  animal  and  vegetable  matter 
than  common  earth,  and  proves  therefore  more  nourish- 
ing food.  The  worm,  then,  feeds  on  the  fat  of  the  earth, 
which  he  converts  into  azotic  aliment  for  the  use  of 
moles,  hens  and  Chinese.  It  only  figures,  it  is  true,  for 
want  of  something  better,  in  Chinese  cookery,  so  pro- 
fusely hospitable  for  all  that ;  but  the  hen  doats  upon 
it,  and  you  do  not  despise  it  yourself  when  it  comes  back 
to  you  in  the  form  of  a  chicken's  wing,  that  second  trans- 
formation of  the  matter  of  which  the  soil  of  your  garden 
is  composed.  It  is  told  of  certain  savage  tribes,  the 
victims  of  constant  scarcity,  that  they  swallow  little 
balls  of  clay  in  order  to  keep  down  their  hunger  ;  and 
during  the  great  famines  in  India  the  distracted  inhab- 
itants may,  we  are  told,  be  seen  digging  up  the  banks 
of  the  rivers  to  feed  on  the  fertile  clay  in  which  the 
splendid  vegetation  of  their  country  is  developed.  This 
is  a  desperate  trial  of  that  primeval  system  of  alimenta- 
tion which  answers  perfectly  with  the  worm,  but  be- 
comes a  cruel  mockery  in  the  case  of  an  organisation 

».  e.,  from  inorganic  matter,  as  vegetables  do,  to  use  his  own  words. 
But  this  notion  is  so  entirely  at  variance  with  present  received  opin- 
ions, and  also  with  the  fact  that  the  animal  possesses  a  gizzard  for 
digesting,  as  well  as  an  intestinal  canal,  that  it  has  been  necessary 
to  make  considerable  alterations  in  the  description.  To  dismiss  his 
theory  of  the  primitive  animal,  etc.,  altogether,  was,  however,  im- 
possible, without  omitting  the  whole  chapter ;  but  as  young  heads 
are  not  likely  to  trouble  themselves  about  it,  and  it  is  very  innocent 
in  itself,  it  will  do  no  harm ;  subject  to  this  warning,  that  M.  Mace 
has  taken  the  earth  worm  for  a  more  simply  organised  creature  than 
it  really  is.— Tn. 


WORMS.  375 

as  exacting  as  that  of  man.     Let  us  examine  a  little 
more  closely,  then,  this  wonderful  tube. 

At  first  sight  one  notices,  to  begin  with,  that  it  is 
composed  of  perfectly  distinct  rings,  all  quite  alike.  In- 
side as  well  as  out  each  of  these  rings  is  an  exact  repe- 
tition of  the  other.  They  are  all  formed  of  circular 
muscles,  enclosed  between  two  coats,  which  extend  from 
one  to  the  other.  A  series  of  ganglions,  arranged  in 
the  form  of  a  necklace  along  the  whole  length  of  the 
body,  set  in  motion  the  muscular  system  of  the  rings, 
each  of  which  possesses  its  local  centre  of  impulsion. 
Each  feeds  itself  in  its  place  from  the  nourishing  juices 
with  which  it  is  in  contact,  the  interior  coat  enjoying 
the  double  property  of  distilling  digestive  juices  and 
absorbing  digested  ones.  These  juices  pass  through  the 
muscular  partition,  and  proceed  to  bathe  the  outer  coat, 
which  plays,  at  the  same  time,  the  part  of  coat  and  lung, 
and  affords  a  passage  to  the  air  through  its  soft,  damp 
surface,  like  that  of  gills.  From  all  this  results  a  fine 
red  blood,  such  as  we  have  not  met  with  since  we  left 
the  reptiles,  and  which  is  manufactured  in  all  parts  of 
the  body  at  once. 

Each  of  these  rings,  then,  the  worm's  only  organs,  is 
a  little  eating  machine  to  and  for  itself,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  little  movement  machine  also  ;  in  fact,  a  complete 
animal.  Each  one  could,  if  necessary,  nourish  itself  and 
live  apart ;  and  this  is  what  he  really  does.  Learn 
hence,  to  despise  nothing  in  nature.  One  tramples  an 
earthworm  under  foot,  and  there  below  one's  heel  lies  a 
little  revealer  of  secrets,  whose  organisation  throws  the 
most  unexpected  light  upon  one  of  the  greatest  mysteiies 
in  our  own  life. 

I  said  to  you  before,  and  I  felt  at  the  time  that  it  was 
rather  beyond  you,  that  "  each  one  of  our  organs  is  a 


376  WORMS. 

distinct  being,  which  has  its  particular  nature  and  spe- 
cial office,  its  separate  life  consequently  ;  and  our  indivi- 
dual life  is  the  sum  total  of  all  these  lesser  lives,  inde- 
pendent one  of  the  other,  but  which  nevertheless  blend 
together,  by  a  mysterious  combination,  into  one  common 
life,  which  is  diffused  everywhere,  but  can  be  appre- 
hended nowhere  in  particular." 

The  study  of  the  worm  admirably  explains  this  out-of- 
the-way  sentence.  And  here  observe  my  adjective — my 
out-of-the-way — for  it  is  a  case  in  point.  We  may  call 
it  a  literary  worm  ;  a  worm  of  four  rings,  each  perfect 
in  itself,  but  yet  compounded  together  into  a  whole  with 
its  own  idea. 

That  which  makes  this  idea  of  life  most  difficult  to 
comprehend  is,  that  one  cannot  prove  it  by  a  direct  ex- 
periment, since  there  is  not  one  of  our  organs  which 
could  exist  separately  from  the  others.  Although  inde. 
pendent  in  their  special  action,  yet  these  multiplied  lives 
are  nevertheless  in  a  state  of  absolute  and  mutual  depend- 
ence, from  the  imperative  need  they  have  of  each  other 
to  make  them  act,  each  having  for  its  share  only  one  par- 
ticular function,  the  effect  of  which  extends  to  all  the 
others.  This  is  called  the  division  of  labor  ;  and  if 
you  still  do  not  understand  me  clearly,  I  will  explain  it 
in  another  way.  The  heart  sends  to  all  the  organs — 
does  it  not  ? — the  blood,  without  which  they  could  not 
live  :  separated  from  the  heart,  the  lungs  would  die  imme- 
diately. It  is  to  the  lungs  the  blood  goes  to  find  the 
air,  without  which  it  oould  not  maintain  life.  Separated 
from  the  lungs,  the  heart  would  die  immediately.  There 
is  nothing  belonging  to  us  which  can  avoid  the  inexora- 
ble requirements  of  blood  and  air  ;  consequently,  there 
is  nothing  which  can  live  an  isolated  life. 

I  will  borrow  a  simile  from  human  society  which  you 


WORMS.  377 

understand  at  once.  In  civilised  countries,  where 
division  of  labor  is  established,  the  tailor  makes  clothes, 
the  mason  makes  houses,  and  the  baker  makes  bread.  If 
you  could  throw  them  each  alone  by  himself  into  a  wood, 
the  mason  would  not  be  able  to  dress  himself,  the  baker 
would  sleep  in  the  open  air,  and  the  tailor  would  not 
know  how  to  make  bread.  Or  rather,  as  not  one  of 
them  can  carry  on  his  trade  without  the  co-operation  of 
a  multitude  of  hands,  they  could  none  of  them  do  any- 
thing at  all.  Each  completely  independent  in  his  work, 
yet  each  dependent  upon  the  others,  both  for  living,  and 
even  for  being  able  to  work,  our  workmen  can  only  act 
when  they  remain  bound  in  close  union  with  the  vast 
society  of  which  they  form  a  part;  and  our  organs — 
those  other  laborers  whom  you  have  seen  working  for 
so  long — our  organs  are  just  in  the  same  predicament. 
But  in  the  primitive  societies,  among  savage  tribes, 
where  each  man  can  make  his  clothes,  his  house,  his 
bread  (when  he  has  any),  and  everything  else  for  him- 
self, you  might  take  such  an  individual  if  you  liked,  and 
separate  him  from  the  rest  of  the  tribe,  and  he  would 
go  on  living  as  before.  And  so  with  the  rings  of  the 
worm,  that  primitive  society  of  organs.  Each  of  them 
is  a  universal  workman,  who  knows  how  to  make  every- 
thing. Separate  him  from  his  fellows,  it  will  not  disturb 
him  at  all,  and  he  will  go  on  living  as  if  nothing  was 
the  matter. 

I  still  remember  some  profound  reflections  I  indulged 
in  one  day  some  years  ago  whilst  leaning  on  my  spade 
and  looking  at  a  worm  that  I  had  just  cut  in  two,  and 
whose  two  halves  were  walking  off  one  on  each  side. 

"  There  was  only  one  creature  here  just  now,"  I  said 
to  myself,  "  and  now  there  are  two !  Have  I  had  power, 
then,  to  create  one  with  a  stroke  of  the  spade?" 


378  WORMS. 

I  had  not  then  got  hold  of  the  key  which  I  now  give 
you,  and  to  which  no  possible  objection  can  be  raised. 
If  there  are  two  beings  after  the  stroke  of  the  spade  it  is 
because  there  were  two  before.  Nay,  there  were  even 
many  more,  if  we  may  trust  to  the  "  Manual  of  Zoology" 
by  Milne  Edwards,  a  very  good  book,  excellent  for  an 
old  scholar  like  myself,  and  which  I  have  found  very 
useful  in  my  country-home,  as  it  has  enabled  me  to  relate 
to  you  one  after  another  the  mysterious  wonders  of  life. 

He  says  that,  "  if  one  cuts  an  earthworm  across  into 
two,  three,  ten,  or  even  twenty  morsels,  each  of  these 
morsels  will  go  on  living  in  the  same  way  as  the  whole, 
and  will  form  a  new  individual." 

Twenty !  that  seems  to  me  a  great  many,  because,  as 
far  as  I  can  trust  to  my  brief  observations  as  a  gardener, 
it  is  necessary  that  some  of  the  rings  should  remain 
united  together  and  afford  each  other  mutual  support, 
in  order  to  succeed  in  repairing  the  bleeding  breaches  ; 
but  I  would  much  rather  believe  it  than  try  the  opera- 
tion. My  mind  is  easy  when  I  am  defending  the  plants 
that  I  have  sown  in  my  garden  from  the  gluttonous 
worm  who  would  rob  them  of  their  food  ;  but  it  would 
not  be  so  if  I  were  cutting  them  up  on  my  table  to  learn 
something  about  them. 

Besides,  there  is  no  need  of  an  operation  to  convince 
oneself  of  the  particular  life  of  each  ring.  There  is  one 
worm,  well  known  by  name  at  least,  though  happily  not 
to  be  met  with  every  day,  and  that  is  the  tape-worm, 
who  establishes  himself  in  the  intestine  of  man,  and  lives 
on  the  chyme,  as  the  other  worm  does  on  garden-mould. 
They  call  him  the  Solitary  worm  in  France ;  and  if  ever 
one  might  suppose  a  creature  appropriately  named,  it 
would  surely  be  him ;  for  certainly  there  is  not  much 
society  to  be  looked  for  in  the  dwelling  he  chooses  for 


WORMS.  379 

himself!  But  it  happens  that  this  pretended  solitary 
worm,  with  his  unlimited  chain  of  rings,  is  only  a  long 
row  of  perfectly  distinct  beings,  so  distinct  indeed  that, 
from  time  to  time,  some  of  the  rings  let  themselves  go, 
fall  off  like  ripe  fruit,  and  go  away  to  live  elsewhere, 
ready  to  become  the  nucleus  of  a  new  set,  if  a  happy  ac- 
cident carries  them  into  another  intestine,  the  only  place 
favorable  to  their  development. 

At  last,  then,  here  is  a  corner  of  the  curtain  raised  ; 
here  we  see  the  associated  organs  which  constitute  an 
animal,  living  for  once  a  life  positively  and  in  all  re- 
spects their  own.  We  are  now  satisfied  about  this  ;  and 
when  at  another  time  we  find  them  bound  together  in 
the  chains  of  a  union  too  ingenious  to  be  severed  with 
impunity — which  we  shall  discover  by  seeing  their  action 
stop  at  the  moment  of  separation — we  shall  know  the 
cause. 

Do  not  think,  my  dear  child,  that  a  wretched  earth- 
worm can  prove  nothing  as  regards  other  creatures. 
The  worm  is  the  starting-point  of  all  the  organisations 
which  come  after  him.  Of  what  is  he  composed  ?  Of 
a  tube  which  is  itself  composed  of  rings.  Well,  it  is 
upon  this  very  tube  that  the  whole  animal  machine  has 
been  founded :  and  these  rings,  as  they  expand  and 
modify  themselves  in  a  thousand  different  ways,  give 
birth  to  all  those  varieties  of  being  which  drive  classi- 
fiers to  despair,  because  they  will  not  understand  that 
there  ought  only  to  be  one  animal,  since  there  is  only 
one  Creator  of  animals.  Now,  this  animal  is  a  diges- 
tive tube  served  by  organs  ;  it  is  a  worm,  i.  e.,  which 
goes  on  constantly  embellishing  itself.  I  said  to  you 
long  ago,  and  at  a  time  when  you  scarcely  knew  anything, 
"  Have  you  ever  observed  a  worm  or  a  leech  in  motion  ? 
You  sec  a  successive  swelling  up  of  the  whole  surface 


380  WORMS. 

of  its  body  as  the  creature  gradually  pushes  forward,  as 
if  there  was  something  in  its  inside  rolling  along  from 
the  tail  to  the  head.  Such  is  precisely  the  appearance 
which  the  oesophagus  would  present  to  you  as  the  food 
passes  down  it,  if  you  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  it 
in  action ;  and  this  has  been  called  the  vermicular 
movement,  in  consequence  of  its  resemblance  to  the  move- 
ment of  a  worm." 

And  afterwards,  in  speaking  of  the  intestine  : 

"  If  your  body  were  made  of  glass,  so  that  you  could 
look  through  it  to  watch  the  intestine  at  work,  it  would 
appear  to  you  like  an  enormous  worm,  coiled  up  into  a 
bundle,  heaving  and  moving  with  all  its  rings  at  once." 

You  have  now  got  hold  of  the  secret,  namely,  that 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  digestive  tube,  its 
movements  are  those  of  a  worm.  What  a  wonder !  and 
that  the  worm  is  a  digestive  tube  which  can  walk.  This 
worm,  or  this  tube,  whichever  you  please  to  call  it,  has 
never  ceased  crawling  under  our  eyes  since  we  began 
this  study.  Lost  sight  of  in  man  in  the  midst  of  the 
riches  he  has  picked  up  on  his  road,  invisible  and  coiled 
backward  and  forward  in  his  palace  like  an  Eastern 
despot  who  leaves  everything  to  be  done  by  his  slaves  ; 
behold  him  here  in  his  first  stage  naked,  shivering  in 
the  air,  forced  to  go  off  himself  and  alone  to  his  pasture- 
ground!  But  in  the  coarse  earth  with  which  he  fills 
himself  I  can  already  see  the  delicate  chyme  which  his 
numerous  servants  will  prepare  for  him  later  on,  and 
into  which  the  heart-tree  will  one  day*  send  down  its 
roots — the  chyliferous  vessels. 

A  short  time  ago  I  called  the  oyster  the  primitive  ani- 
mal, but  I  was  in  too  great  a  hurry.  The  worm  is  the 
real  primitive  animal.  He  is  to  be  found  in  the  oyster, 
as  the  oyster  is  to  b  3  found  in  us  ;  and  that  poor  little 


ZOOPHYTES.  381 

beast  is,  by  comparison,  an  animal  of  high  pretension, 
who  would  be  shocked,  I  am  sure,  if  he  could  understand 
what  we  are  saying,  and  heard  us  assert  that  he  is  noth- 
ing but  an  embellished  worm. 

Zoophytes. 

Two  centuries  ago  it  was  believed  that  below  the 
worm,  animal  life,  properly  so  called,  ceased,  and  the 
creatures  whom  I  am  about  to  introduce  you  to  were 
supposed  to  be  animated  plants  rather  than  living  organ- 
isms. Hence  their  name  was  especially  chosen  to  ex- 
press that  double  nature  by  which  they  were  thought 
to  have  a  share  iii  two  kingdoms  at  one  time — viz.,  the 
animal  and  vegetable — zoon  in  Greek  meaning  animal, 
and  phuton  a  plant.  Zoophytes  were  set  down  as  ani- 
mal plants. 

And  although  later  discoveries  have  long  ago  estab- 
lished the  fact  of  the  complete  animality  of  zoophytes, 
the  old  name  is  still  in  general  use.  But  you  must 
not  let  it  deceive  you.  Zoophytes  are  animals  every 
inch  of  them,  however  low  in  the  organic  scale,  and 
although  many  of  the  compound  ones  imitate  the  growth 
of  plants  and  shrubs  so  exactly  in  their  mode  of  spread- 
ing, that  it  is  only  by  the  closest  observation  we  can 
persuade  ourselves  they  do  not  belong  to  the  vegetable 
kingdom.  Of  these  there  are  the  delicate  buff-colored, 
prettily-branched,  horny  specimens  found  on  the  shore, 
which  make  so  beautiful  a  variety  in  seaweed  pictures 
among  the  red  and  green  colors  of  the  real  seaweed  ; 
but  of  these  also  are  those  wonderful  stony  shrubs  which 
grow  on  the  submerged  rocks  of  islands  in  warms  seas, 
and  the  material  which  you  know  so  well  by  the 
name  of  coral — the  very  coral  of  which  the  necklaces 
and  bracelets -in  the  jeweller's  window  are  composed. 


382  ZOOPHYTES. 

In  all  cases  of  compound  zoophytes,  however,  there  is 
one  great  point  which  they  have  in  common  with  the 
worm,  viz.,  that  there  is  an  association  of  distinct  lives 
acting  unanimously;  or,  rather,  to  the  same  end.  Plainly 
as  this  is  seen  in  the  worm,  it  is  still  more  obvious  in 
the  zoophyte.  There  is  no  need  here  either  of  cutting 
them  up  yourself  or  of  taking  other  people's  dissecting 
operations  upon  trust.  It  is  enough  to  use  your  eyes, 
with  the  help,  it  is  true,  now  and  then,  of  the  micro- 
scope's clearer  sight. 

You  know  the  old  oak-tree  which  stands  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  wood,  and  is  called  among  the  country 
folk  the  patriarch  f  Now,  this  is  clearly  not  an  indivi- 
dual, but  a  nation.  It  is  not  a  tree  ;  it  is  a  forest.  Nay, 
may  I  not  call  it  a  green  field  ?  For  this  trunk,  so 
truly  venerable  from  ages  of  growth  that  one  feels  in- 
clined to  bow  to  it  as  one  goes  by,  is,  in  fact,  a  collec- 
tion of  structures,  accumulated  by  countless  generations 
of  fleeting  herbs,  i.  e.,  leaves,  not  one  of  which  has 
lived  for  the  space  of  a  whole  year  round.  Every 
spring  some  thousands  and  thousands  of  buds  open  to 
the  sun ;  each  one,  therefore,  affording  a  passage  to  a 
little  green  point ;  and  this  point  is  an  oak,  who  comes 
into  the  world,  like  the  first  oak,  the  grandfather  who 
formerly  came  forth  from  an  acorn,  under  the  form  of 
an  herb  or  tender  leaf,  which  a  sheep  might  have 
browsed  upon.  Yet  it  is  so  thoroughly  an  oak,  that 
you  have  only  to  take  out  the  bud  carefully  before  it  has 
expanded  and  fasten  it  into  another  one's  place  upon  a 
tree  of  the  same  family,  though  of  a  different  species, 
and  it  will  produce  an  oak  of  the  same  sort  as  its  old 
companions,  and  which  will,  as  it  progresses,  look  quite 
a  stranger  among  tbe  indigenous  branches.  This  is  the 
secret  of  what  the  gardeners  call  grafting,  and  I  advise 


ZOOPHYTES.  383 

you  to  try  the  operation  upon  rose-trees,  for  nothing  is 
more  amusing.  When  the  autumnal  frosts  set  in,  all 
these  troops  of  new  little  oaks  die,  and  deliver  up  their 
leaves  to  the  wind ;  but  they  leave  behind,  as  their 
summer's  work,  a  tiny  morsel  of  new  wood,  upon  which, 
if  you  look  carefully,  you  will  see  a  fresh  bud  dawning 
— the  hope  of  the  coming  season.  And  thus  the  great 
life  of  the  tree  is  perpetuated  from  century  to  century  by 
an  uninterrupted  succession  of  transient  lives,  reminding 
one  in  all  respects  of  the  life  of  a  nation  ;  and  the  simili- 
tude is  complete  in  the  evergreen  trees,  where  the  new 
leaf  makes  its  appearance  before  the  old  one  has  quitted 
the  stem. 

And  such  is  the  life  of  the  great  stone  trees  and  shrubs 
of  various  kinds  which  grow  under  tropical  seas,  and 
whose  makers  and  inhabitants  are  the  coral  polyps,  the 
undoubted  heads  of  the  Zoophyte  race. 

But  before  considering  the  polypidom,  or  external 
dwelling  (otherwise  called  the  cwnecium,  or  "  common 
house"),  you  must  learn  something  of  its  originator,  the 
little  polyp,  who  lives  inside,  and  belongs  to  a  family  so 
widely  spread  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  there  are 
scarcely  any  waters,  whether  salt  or  fresh,  without  them. 

In  your  own  neighborhood,  if  you  know  how  to  look 
for  them,  are  to  be  found  on  the  banks  of  ponds,  or  along 
the  borders  of  streams  which  lie  sleeping  in  roadside 
ditches,  extraordinary  beings  which,  a  hundred  years 
and  more  ago,  completely  bewildered  the  good  Dutch 
naturalist  Trembley,  who  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to 
study  them.  Picture  to  yourself  some  very  tiny  bags 
made  of  a  kind  of  jelly ;  gray,  brown,  or,  most  commonly 
of  all,  green  in  color,  always  transparent,  and  fastened 
by  their  base  to  the  stalks  of  carex,  water-lentils,  or  the 
confervas,  which  grow  in  still  water.  A  hunter  on  the 


384  ZOOPHYTES. 

watch,  this  bag  shoots  out  on  all  sides  a  number  of 
slender  threads,  like  so  many  whip-lashes,  arranged 
within  a  circle  round  the  edge  of  its  opening  or  mouth  ; 
and  with  these  whip-lashes  all  the  animalcules  which 
come  within  reach  are  entwined,  stifled,  and  carried 
away  to  the  ever-yawning  little  gulf,  where  they  are  di- 
gested in  less  than  no  time.  Whatever  will  not  digest 
comes  out  afterwards  by  the  way  it  went  in.  Of  what 
becomes  of  the  results  of  this  digestion  it  is  impossible 
to  form  an  idea.  Were  you  to  cut  up  the  bag  and  put 
little  morsels  of  it  under  the  best  microscope  possible, 
you  would  see  positively  nothing  but  solid  jelly,  without 
the  least  sign  of  any  organisation  whatever.  But  this 
is  not  all.  Replace  these  morsels  in  the  water,  and 
come  back  to  look  at  them  .at  the  end  of  five,  twenty,  or 
thirty  hours.  Each  one  of  them  will  have  become  a  per- 
fect bag,  ready  to  multiply  itself  afresh  if  you  submit  it 
to  the  same  operation.  Sometimes,  on  some  part  of  the 
original  bag,  there  suddenly  appears  a  little  raised  "spot, 
like  that  which  came  on  your  baby  brother's  arm  the 
other  day  after  he  had  been  vaccinated.  What  would 
you  have  said,  if  this  ugly  spot  had  grown  larger  and 
larger  without  stopping  ;  if  it  had  assumed  legs,  arms, 
and  a  head,  and  so  become  another  baby,  growing  from 
the  arm  of  the  first  one  ?  Yet  this  is  just  what  the  spots 
do  which  come  on  the  bag  I  have  been  telling  you  of ; 
and  people  have  come  across  bags  of  a  larger  species 
still — between  one  and  two  inches  in  size,  in  fact — which 
in  this  way  carried  twelve  young  ones  on  their  backs,  if 
one  is  allowed  to  talk  of  stomachs  having  lacks.  You 
perceive  at  once  that  this  commencement  of  animal  life 
is  not  even  a  digestive  tube,  and  that  nothing  in  it  can 
be  found  but  a  stomach,  opening  straight  to  the  air  above 
and  closed  up  below. 


ZOOPHYTES.  385 

It  was  Reaumur,  the  originator  of  the  famous  ther- 
mometer, who  gave  a  name  to  the  wonderful  bags  dis- 
covered by  Trembley.  Aristotle  had  previously  bestowed 
the  title  of  polypus  (many  feet)  upon  a  mollusk  outwardly 
formed  upon  a  similar  model*  with  large  whips  disposed 
regularly  in  a  circle  round  the  mouth,  and  intended  for 
a  similar  use,  only  that  they  have  another  function  be- 
sides ;  that  of  carrying  the  body  along  in  the  capacity 
of  feet  by  clinging  on  to  the  rocks  with  their  suckers  as 
they  go.  Reaumur  transferred  this  name  to  the  new- 
comers, and  called  them  fresh-water  polyps,  to  the  infi- 
nite amusement  of  Yoltaire,  who  had  declared  that  they 
were  only  blades  of  grass  ;  a  new  proof,  among  many 
others,  that  in  natural  history  allv  the  intellect  in  the 
world  is  not  worth  a  pair  of  good  eyes. 

But  it  was  soon  found  out  that,  in  collecting  these  bits 
of  living  jelly  near  the  Hague,  Trembley  had  laid  his 
hands  on  little  beings  of  immense  importance  on  the 
surface  of  the  globe,  and  that  he  had  discovered  under 
his  microscope  the  explanation  of  a  mystery  which  had 
spread  itself,  setting  human  science  at  defiance,  over 
some  thousands  of  square  miles. 

I  talked  to  you  just  now  of  the  jeweller's  coral,  of 
which  ornaments  so  becoming  to  dark-haired  people  are 
made.  That  is  one  of  the  stony  polypidoms  I  spoke  of 
as  stone  trees  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  where  it 
grows  attached  to  the  rocks  in  the  form  of  a  charming 
little  shrub,  stretching  its  red  branches  in  all  directions. 
The  Greeks,  who  were  never  at  a  loss,  relate  that  Per- 
seus one  day  laid  down  upon  the  sea-shore  the  famous 
head  of  Medusa,  the  sight  of  which  had  the  property  of 

*  Tliis  is  the  cuttle-fish,  called  polypus  by  old  naturalists.  We 
shall  speak  of  it  fully  hereafter  in  the  history  of  the  movement 
machine. 

17 


386  ZOOPHYTES. 

turning  everything  to  stone,  and  that  the  nymphs,  in 
sport,  showed  it  to  the  coral  shrubs ;  a  fact  which  ex- 
plained everything  quite  naturally.  Without  exactly 
holding  this  mythological  explanation,  modern  philoso- 
phers had  not  got  much  farther,  and  coral  was  still  a 
puzzle  to  them,  which  they  were  not  fond  of  troubling 
themselves  about  •  till,  roused  by  Trembley's  revelations, 
they  examined  it  more  carefully,  and  discovered  in  its 
soft  extremities  (hitherto  unnoticed)  those  same  living 
jelly-bags  or  sacs,  with  their  circlets  of  legs,  or  rather 
arms,  charged  with  supplying  them  with  food.  These 
were  marine  polyps,  which  grow,  like  those  in  fresh 
water,  one  upon  another,  but  each  in  its  own  crusty  cell ; 
and  like  the  buds  of  the  oak,  these  buds  of  the  stony  tree 
form  each  its  special  deposit,  which  it  bequeaths  in  dying 
to  the  general  mass.  In  short,  as  the  tender  shoot  of 
the  oak  is  filled  by  degrees  with  the  wood  which  forms 
within  it,  and  hardens  into  a  branch,  that  goes  on  in- 
creasing by  perpetually  new  growths,  so  the  jelly  polyp 
of  the  polypidom  hardens  below  into  stone  and  dies 
incessantly  at  the  base,  while  it  lives  on  indefinitely 
above  in  its  constantly-renewed  summit. 

Do  not  get  tired  of  all  this  phantasmagoria,  my  dear 
pupil :  it  is  a  matter  of  the  highest  interest.  Here  is 
the  point  of  junction — the  bond,  as  it  were,  between 
the  three  kingdoms  :  an  animal  growing  vegetable-wise 
produces  a  mineral  mass,  extracted  from  the  waters  of 
the  sea  by  an  infinity  of  little  living  crucibles,  who  carry 
on  under  our  eyes  the  work  begun  in  the  first  ages  of 
the  globe,  and  quietly  manufacture  continents  for  the  use 
of  future  generations.  This  ought  to  console  you,  my 
dear  child,  for  being  little.  It  is  by  little  things  that 
God  loves  to  effect  what  is  truly  great.  He  did  not 
seek  out  the  elephant  or  the  whale  to  form  these  worlds ; 


ZOOPHYTES.  387 

He  chose  workmen  no  bigger  than  a  pin's  head.  I  have 
spoken  to  you  about  jeweller's  coral,  which  is  made  into 
toys  or  presents  for  ladies  to  adorn  themselves  with  ; 
but  its  brethren,  the  madrepores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
play  a  very  different  part.  They  have  formed  in  front 
of  the  shores  of  New  Holland  a  barrier  of  reefs  three 
hundred  leagues  in  extent  and  twenty  wide.  What  are 
all  our  buildings  after  this  ? — those  pyramids  and  cathe- 
drals which  seem  so  gigantic  to  us  ?  This  ever-increas- 
ing wave  of  coral  polypidoms  will  one  day  shut  against 
navigators  the  entrance  to  one  part  of  the  sea's  tropical 
region ;  and  lands  not  to  be  found  on  the  map  to-day 
will  then  lie  stretched  out  under  the  sun,  covered  with 
plants  and  animals  ;  and  this  in  places  where  ships  now 
plough  the  ocean.  Know,  also,  that  a  great  portion  of 
the  soil  which  we  tread  under  foot  has  no  other  origin. 
It  was  manufactured  formerly  in  the  sea  by  infinite 
myriads  of  beings,  often  infinitely  small.  Each  one, 
whether  polype  or  shell,  produced  its  grain  of  stone,  and 
from  all  these  grains  God,  who  directed  their  work,  has 
made  our  country. 

But  it  is  time  to  bring  this  chattering  to  a  close,  for 
it  will  never  end  if  I  do  not  force  myself  to  stop.  I  leave 
it  with  regret ;  but  all  these  paths  through  which  I  have 
threaded  my  way  one  after  another  without  counting 
them,  have  already  made  a  volume  which  may  possibly 
be  considered  too  large  for  you.  There  are  many  other 
zoophytes  besides  the  coral  polypes,  and  all  of  them 
beautiful  and  curious.  They  all  inhabit  the  fertile 
depths  of  the  waters  where  God  has  deposited  the  first 
germs  of  life.  I  cannot  describe  them  to  you  now.  But 
to  make  amends,  I  will  give  you  a  piece  of  advice  which 
will  perhaps  make  some  people  stare.  Ask  your  papa 
to  lend  you  Michelet's  book,  The  Sea,  and  look  there 


388  ZOOPHYTES. 

for  what  is  said  about  the  mysterious  animals  which  lie 
hid  beneath  the  waves.  His  book  was  not  written  for 
you  as  this  one  is  :  and  if,  in  spite  of  all  my  good  inten- 
tions, I  have  not  always  succeeded  in  being  as  compre- 
hensible as  I  meant  to  be,  Michelet,  who  never  thought 
about  little  people  when  he  took  up  his  pen.,  will  cer- 
tainly startle  you  now  and  then.  But  do  not  be  dis- 
heartened by  a  word.  You  will  find  there,  that  which 
will  be  forever  plain  to  you,  the  poesy  of  nature,  and 
children  comprehend  that  better  than  learned  men. 


LETTER    XL. 

THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS. 

ONE  more  word  before  we  part  about  the  last  of  the 
eaters,  about  Vegetables.  They  will  furnish  you  with  a 
new  and  very  clearly  marked  proof  of  the  uniformity  of 
the  fundamental  conditions  to  which  the  Author  of  life 
has  subjected  all  organised  beings. 

Let  us  look  once  more  at  this  oak,  of  whose  manner 
of  growth  I  was  obliged  to  give  you  a  sketch  before- 
hand, in  order  to  show  you  the  ties  which  unite  it  with 
its  immediate  neighbors  in  the  animal  kingdom.  How 
does  it  feed  ?  I  need  not  tell  you  this.  It  feeds  by  its 
roots,  which  suck  up  in  the  bosom  of  the  earth  the  water 
charged  with  the  juices  which  form  its  nourishment. 
Are  you  aware  that  every  large  branch  had  its  subter- 
ranean fellow  or  representative,  and  that  the  annual 
shoot  at  the  top  of  the  tree  is  reproduced  at  the  base  by 
fresh  fibres,  which  extend  themselves  in  the  soil  of  the 
earth,  in  proportion  as  their  sisters  above  make  their 
way  in  the  air  ?  And  thus,  by  means  of  organs  ever 
young,  the  life  and  progress  of  the  great  association  is 
kept  up,  while  those  members  whose  day  of  work  is  over 
still  remain  there  as  the  supports  of  the  edifice.  It  is 
the  same  with  human  societies.  They  are  sustained  by 
what  is  old,  but  they  live  and  progress  only  by  what  is 
young.  The  sap,  then,  which  is  the  name  given  to  the 
moisture  or  water  sucked  in  by  the  young  roots,  having 

(389) 


390         THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS. 

once  got  into  the  cells  of  which  the  tissue  of  the  fibres 
is  composed,  passes  from  one  to  another,  and  travels 
thus  to  the  top  of  the  tree,  where  it  is  wanted  by  the 
leaves. 

There  is  no  obvious  machinery  here,  however,  to  impel 
it  forward.  It  journeys  on  of  itself,  as  it  were,  under 
the  action  of  laws  which  have  never  been  satisfactorily 
explained,  but  all  of  which  are  dependent  on  the  vital 
force  or  life-power  of  the  tree,  inasmuch  as  without  it 
there  is  no  circulation.  One  agent,  but  by  no  means 
the  principal,  or  it  would  act  as  well  in  a  dead  tree  as 
a  living  one,  is  capillary  attraction  ;  and,  if  you  wish  to 
know  what  that  is,  you  have  only  to  think  of  what  hap- 
pens to  a  towel,  if  you  hang  it  upon  a  peg,  and  leave 
the  end  of  it  soaking  in  water.  Does  not  the  "wet" 
seem  to  climb  up  it  thread  by  thread,  till  it  is  damp 
from  one  end  to  the  other  ?  A  little  in  this  way — but 
these  similes  are  very  imperfect,  and  will  not  bear  close 
application — the  sap  rises  in  a  tree,  stealing  up  branch 
by  branch  ;  and  it  is  then  called  ascending  sap* 

It  arrives  at  last  at  the  leaves,  which  it  enters  as  our 
food  enters  our  stomachs,  and  for  the  same  purpose  ;  for 
in  them  takes  place,  as  in  all  true  stomachs,  that  process 

*  M.  Mace  speaks  of  this  sap  as  the  Uood  of  the  tree,  and  of  the 
leaves  only  as  lungs.  These  statements  have  been  modified  so  as  to 
meet  the  fact  that  ascending  sap  consists  of,  and  conveys  the  raw 
elements  of  food  to,  the  leaves ;  that  in  the  leaves  this  food  is  digested, 
as  well  as  brought  in  contact  with  the  air,  and  that  it  is  thus  con- 
verted into  that  nourishing  fluid,  the  descending  sap,  which  certainly 
plays  the  part  of  steward  to  the  tree  as  our  blood  does  to  us,  and 
therefore  may  now  be  called  the  blood  of  the  tree.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, however,  that  each  tree  has  its  own  sort  of  steward,  as 
the  case  of  the  Euphorbia  (quoted  afterwards)  plainly  shows.  The 
analogy  with  the  more  general  substance  of  blood  is  therefore  not 
very  complete. — Tn. 


THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS.         391 

of  digestion  by  which  the  elements  of  the  crude  sap-food 
are  decomposed  from  their  first  condition,  and  converted 
into  a  nourishing  chyle  ;  in  each  tree  of  a  sort  "  after  its 
kind." 

But  more  than  this.  Like  the  outer  coat  of  the  earth- 
worm, the  coat  of  the  leaf  affords  a  passage  to  air  and 
moisture  through  its  surface  ;  and  here,  therefore,  takes 
place  that  mysterious  exchange  which  is  everywhere  the 
essential  condition  of  life.  Here  is  the  charcoal-market 
as  before,  only  the  bargainers  have  changed  parts.  The 
air,  which  in  the  other  case  received  the  carbon,  delivers 
it  up,  now,  and  receives  oxygen  in  exchange  ;  exactly 
the  reverse  of  its  traffic  with  animals.  In  other  words, 
the  tree  inhales  through  its  leaves  the  carbonic  acid  gas 
thrown  into  the  atmosphere  by  our  lungs.  On  its  own 
responsibility  it  breaks  through  the  alliance  between  the 
carbon  and  oxygen  contracted  in  our  organs  ;  keeps  the 
carbon  for  its  own  use,  to  restore  it  to  us  another  day 
under  the  form  of  wood,  or,  by  the  aid  of  the  charcoal- 
burner,  in  the  pure  and  simple  state  of  charcoal ;  and 
sets  at  liberty  the  oxygen,  which  once  more  goes  off  in 
search  of  new  lungs  and  a  fresh  alliance.  Thus  a  con- 
stant equilibrium  is  maintained  in  the  atmosphere  ;  and 
thus,  by  a  system  of  perpetual  rotation  or  everlasting 
merry-go-round,  the  same  substances  serve,  indefinitely, 
to  support  life  of  every  opposite  description. 

Now  there  are  two  things  "to  be  remembered  in  this 
inverted  respiration  of  vegetables.  In  the  first  place,  it 
occurs  only  in  the  parts  which  are  green.  Flowers,  fruit, 
the  root,  and  every  part  of  any  other  color,  do  as  we  do 
when  we  breathe ;  i.  e.  deprive  the  air  of  its  oxygen, 
charging  it  with  carbonic  acid  instead.  For  which 
reason,  by-the-by,  we  ought  not  to  keep  flowers  in  a  bed- 
room at  night.  Charming  as  they  are,  they  are  poisoners^ 


392        THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS. 

and  a  headache  is  what  we  may  fairly  expect  after  sleep- 
ing shut  in  with  them  in  the  same  room.  It  is  almost  as 
bad  to  allow  green  boughs  to  remain  there  either,  for, 
in  the  dark,  even  the  green  parts  cease  to  purify  the  air, 
and  begin  like  the  others  to  manufacture  carbonic  acid, 
at  the  expense  of  course  of  their  carbon,  which  thus  by 
degrees  is  used  up.  Now,  as  it  is  the  carbon  which  con- 
stitutes the  solid  fibres  of  plants  and  produces  their 
green  color,  they  soon  become  yellow  and  limp  when  de- 
prived of  light.  You  may,  perhaps,  have  wondered 
why  the  gardener  amused  himself  with  smothering  his 
poor  lettuces  by  tying  them  up  at  top  like  a  knot  of 
"  back  hair,"  instead  of  letting  them  grow  freely  in  the 
air  and  sunshine.  It  is,  my  dear,  to  make  them  more 
tender  and  delicate  for  you  to  eat ;  and  those  beautiful, 
crisp,  yellow  leaves,  so  delicious  to.  the  tooth,  would 
have  been  green  and  tough,  had  they  not  slowly  and 
quietly  let  out  a  great  portion  of  their  store  of  carbon 
iii  darkness  during  the  last  few  days,  before  being 
gathered.  Even  without  playing  the  gardener,  you  may 
assure  yourself  of  this  fact  in  a  still  more  simple  man- 
ner. Put  a  flat  board  upon  the  lawn  and  leave  it  there 
for  three  days  ;  then  take  it  up  again,  and  you  will  find 
just  where  the  board  has  prevented  the  light  from  reach- 
ing the  grass,  a  yellow  mark  so  distinctly  traced  as  to 
be  seen  from  the  other  end  of  the  garden. 

But  to  return  to  the  sap,  which  we  left  undergoing  a 
change  from  air  and  solar  influences  in  the  leaves.  The 
ascending  sap  was  to  all  appearance  only  clear  water. 
When  it  returns  from  the  leaves,  charged  with  carbon, 
it  is  a  thick  juice  having  almost  the  consistency,  and 
sometimes  even  the  color  of  milk,  and  is  possessed  of 
properties  altogether  new.  The  most  striking  example 
that  I  can  give  you  of  the  difference  of  the  two  states  of 


THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS.         393 

sap  is  the  Euphorbia  of  the  Canary  Islands,  whose  di- 
gestive or  descending  sap  is  a  violent  poison.  When 
the  natives  of  the  country  are  accidentally  pressed  by 
thirst,  they  carefully  remove  the  bark  in  which  the  fatal 
juice  circulates,  and  are  then  able  to  refresh  themselves 
safely  by  sucking  the  stem,  which  yields  only  the  watery 
sap  sucked  from  the  ground,  and  as  yet  unaltered  and 
harmless. 

Each  of  these  two  saps,  in  fact,  has  its  path  distinctly 
traced  for  it :  the  first  rises  through  the  wood,  the  second 
descends  through  the  bark,  whence  it  is  called  descending 
sap.  If  you  wish  to  satisfy  yourself  of  this,  fasten  a  rather 
tight  knot  of  pack-thread  round  a  young  branch,  and 
after  a  time  you  will  see  it  pine  below  the  knot  and  be- 
come swollen  above  it,  an  unanswerable  proof  that  the 
nutritive  juices  flowed  downward  through  the  bark  ;  for 
the  wood  inside  the  branch  will  have  been  uninjured  by 
the  strangling  pressure.  Remember  this,  my  dear,  when 
you  are  playing  in  the  garden,  and  do  not  injure  the 
bark  of  the  young  trees  your  father  likes  so  much  to  see 
flourishing.  It  is  by  the  bark  that  they  are  nourished, 
and  you  might  even  kill  them  by  treating  it  too 
roughly. 

And  now  I  must  show  you  how  the  nutrition  is  carried 
on,  or,  if  you  like  better,  how  the  tree  grows  by  means 
of  this  descending  sap.  See :  here  is  a  fir  tree,  which 
has  just  been  cut  down  to  the  ground.  Now,  if  you  like, 
I  will  tell  you  in  a  moment  how  old  it  is.  I  will  even 
tell  you  the  age  of  every  branch,  little  and  big  ones 
both,  without  making  a  mistake  in  a  single  year  ;  and 
you  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  I  am  no  conjuror.  You 
see  these  small  circles  so  delicately  drawn,  as  it  were, 
upon  the  face  of  the  sawn  trunk,  each  wider  than  the 
last,  as  if  they  were  composed  of  a  set  of  tubes,  of  un- 


394         THE  NOURISHMENT  OF  PLANTS. 

equal  sizes,  fitting  exactly  into  each  other.  Now  count 
them ;  and  you  will  perhaps  find  twenty-five  ;  and  as 
each  of  these  circles  represents  the  work  of  one  year,  you 
will  know  that  the  tree  is  twenty-five  years  old.  In 
spring,  when  the  sap  begins  to  move  more  briskly,  it  de- 
posits everywhere  between  the  wood  and  the  bark,  from 
the  trunk  to  the  farthest  boughs  of  the  tree,  a  uniform 
layer  of  a  thick  liquid,  which  moulds  itself  exactly  upon 
the  wood  already  formed.  This  layer  stiffens  during  the 
year  ;  it  gets  filled  with  the  carbon  left  in  it  atom  after 
atom,  by  each  drop  of  the  descending  sap  as  it  goes  by, 
and  thus  insensibly  becoming  organised  and  hardened. 
When  winter  arrives  to  interrupt  the  work,  it  will  have 
formed  two  ligneous,  L  e.  woody  layers,  as  they  are  called. 
Of  these,  one  belongs  to  the  wood,  and  will  never  move 
again  so  long  as  the  tree  lasts,  for  it  will  be  covered 
over,  and  as  it  were  buried,  by  the  successive  layers  yet 
to  come ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  other  (layer)  be- 
longs to  the  bark,  and  is  doomed  to  find  itself  perpetually 
forced  outwards  by  the  fresh  layers,  which  will  after  a 
while  insinuate  themselves  between  it  and  the  wood. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  bark  of  old  trunks  of  trees 
is  so  deeply  furrowed,  and  that  the  dry  scales  may  be 
picked  off  the  surface  without  the  slightest  injury  to  the 
tree.  It  is  part  of  the  original  bark,  dead  long  ago. 
The  old  wood  also  is  dead  inside,  and  even  when  it  is 
altogether  gone,  the  glad  youthful  branches  growing 
green  in  the  sunshine  will  scarcely  find  it  out !  This  ac- 
counts for  those  oaks  which  time  has  hollowed  without 
destroying,  as  those  of  Allonville  in  Normandy,  in 
which  mass  is  said,  and  which  is  moreover  the  greenest 
tree  in  the  country.  But  without  going  so  far,  who  has 
not  seen  those  hollow  old  willows,  sometimes  pierced 
with  holes  letting  in  daylight,  yet  proudly  crowned 


THE  NOURISHMENT  OP  PLANTS.         395 

« 

above  by  a  forest  of  young  boughs,  as  green  and  full  of 
vigor  as  if  the  trunk  were  still  in  its  prime  ?  What  was 
dead  has  departed,  but  all  that  has  life  in  it  "remains, 
and  that  is  enough  for  the  tree. 

Need  I  add  that  the  descending  sap,  this  steward  of 
the  vegetable,  has  also  his  workmen  to  supply  with 
materials,  as  in  our  case,  and  that  he  is  always  falling 
in  on  his  road  with  organs,  all  of  which  want  different 
things  from  him  ?  That  here  a  flower  has  to  be  formed, 
there  a  fruit,  there  a  leaf,  or  a  bit  of  wood-,  and  so  on  : 
and  that  a  mysterious  intelligence — the  same  that  we 
have  found  everywhere  else — presides  over  all  these 
varied  constructions,  the  materials  for  which  are  mixed 
together  pell-mell,  in  the  imperceptible  thread  of  sap 
which  oozes  from  the  leaf  to  the  bark  ?  I  recollect  just 
as  I  am  about  to  conclude,  my  dear  child,  that  I  once  told 
you,  you  were  a  small  temple  in  which  God  perpetually 
attests  His  presence,  by  a  permanent  miracle.  You  may 
now  henceforth  look  upon  a  tree  as  something  more  than 
a  bit  of  wood,  yielding  a  pleasant  shade.  God  is  in  it 
also. 


CONCLUSION. 

AND  now,  my  dear  little  pupil,  to  what  conclusion  do 
we  come  from  all  this  ?  To  that  which  I  announced  to 
you  from  the  first.  Throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  creation,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  grade,  every 
living  thing  is  subject  to  the  same  law.  Everything  eats, 
and  eats  nearly  in  the  same  manner,  since  everywhere 
the  same  substances  furnish  the  feast.  I  laid  down  in 
my  first  letter  that  our  feeding  machine  was  reproduced 
even  to  the  farthest  limits  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
though  always  becoming  more  simple  as  the  species 
descends  in  the  scale.  And  afterwards,  where  we  began 
the  study  of  animals,  I  told  you  that  in  this  machine  lay 
the  uniformity  of  their  construction.  Was  I  not  right  ? 
and  what  could  I  add  to  all  the  proofs  which  have  devel- 
oped themselves  one  after  another,  to  establish  the  fact 
of  this  uniformity  of  plan  in  the  animal  machine,  in  all 
its  essential  points?  And  it  will  be  to  the  lasting 
renown  of  the  illustrious  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire  that  it 
was,  in  the  face  of  all  the  Academies  and  under  the  fire 
of  very  learned  indignation,  he  proclaimed  this  truth, 
which  one  cannot  lose  sight  of  without  losing  one's  way 
in  a  crowd  of  arbitrary  fancies. 

I  return,  then,  to  the  definition  which  I  gave  you  in 
speaking  of  the  worm,  and  which  is  the  final  word  of 
the  ideas  I  have  been  endeavoring  to  make  you  under- 
stand.    An  animal  is  a  digestive  tube  served  by  organs. 
(396) 


CONCLUSION.  397 

In  the  first  place  it  must  eat,  and  for  this  therefore  the 
Creator  provided  first.  All  the  rest  came  afterwards  in 
order  to  enable  it  to  eat  more  readily,  to  secure  its 
prey  more  easily,  and  to  make  the  most  of  it  when  eaten. 
The  movement  machine,  therefore,  whose  history  I  have 
promised  you,  is  only  an  assistant,  and  not  the  principal 
feature  of  the  organisation,  and  it  is  not  by  it,  therefore, 
that  the  question  can  be  decided,  whether  God  has  made 
three,  four,  or  five  animals,  or  whether  he  has  only  made 
one. 

And  now,  my  dear  little  pupil,  I  will  bid  you  adieu,  or 
rather  say  as  the  French  do,  "  Au  revoir,"  which  means 
"  Good-bye  till  we  meet  again,"  begging  you  to  excuse 
any  awkward  expressions  that  may  have  escaped  me,  as 
also  my  having  now  and  then  talked  about  things  be- 
cause they  have  interested  me,  without  perhaps  suffi- 
ciently considering  whether  they  might  have  an  equal 
interest  for  you.  Yet,  while  the  pen  is  still  in  my  hand, 
I  will  not  leave  you  my  concluding  definition  of  an  ani- 
mal without  adding  a  word  of  explanation.  You  know 
nothing  about  such  matters  yourself,  but  to  some  people 
my  words  might  have  the  air  of  a  parody  upon  another 
definition,  applied  by  those  grave  gentlemen  the  Philoso- 
phers to  man,  whom  they  have  denominated  An  intelli- 
gence sewed  ly  organs.  My  definition  is  applicable  only 
to  the  animal,  and  not  to  man,  observe.  Man  in  the 
natural,  physical  machinery  of  his  body,  is  very  decid- 
edly an  animal ;  yet  as  certainly  is  he,  by  the  divine 
reflection  which  shines  within  him,  something  much  more 
and  greater  ;  but  what,  is  so  far  beyond  the  reach  of 
definition  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  give  you  one. 
"  Man,"  as  Jesus  Christ  has  said,  "  lives  not  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God."  What  it  is  that  is  nourished  in  us  by 


398  CONCLUSION. 

that  word,  is  precisely  what  I  cannot  attempt  to  define 
for  you  ;  yet  I  think  you  have  understood  my  meaning. 
CTO,  then,  and  eat  your  food  in  peace,  like  the  pretty 
little  animal  that  you  are  ;  but  do  not  forget  to  nourish 
also  the  other  part  of  your  being  ;  that  indeed  which  is 
of  the  most  importance,  and  which  enables  you  to  ascend 
to  your  Creator. 


THE  END. 


POSTSCRIPT. 

IN  going  through  the  preceding  pages  (Part  II.)  with 
a  comparative  anatomist,  it  became  evident  that  some 
few  popular  and  other  errors  and  misconceptions  had 
crept  into  this  portion  of  M.  Mace's  usually  clear  and 
accurate  work. 

Naturally  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  verify  all  the 
statements  he  had  to  make  on  so  many  and  such  varied 
subjects,  and  he  appears  occasionally  to  have  trusted  to 
works  of  old-fashioned  or  doubtful  authority. 

In  these  cases  I  have  considered  it  desirable  to  make 
such  corrections  as  should  secure  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  descriptions  as  far  as  they  pretend  to  go. 

It  would  not,  however,  have  been  in  my  power  to  ac- 
complish this,  but  for  the  kind  and  efficient  aid  I  have 
received  from  a  scientific  student  of  these  subjects  ;  and 
I  am  glad  of  this  opportunity  of  acknowledging  how 
much  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  his  assistance  in  making 
the  necessary  alterations,  as  well  as  for  confirming  the 
correctness  of  the  greater  portion  of  the  work. 

MARGARET    GATTY. 

January,  1865. 


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